Honor and Grace
by Corilee
Summary: Raphael has just been offered the chance to become human indefinitely. The air in NYC is heavy with change and uncertainty. A dangerous unknown looms over the heads of the TMNT. Are they ready? Rated M for language.
1. Where do you go when you're gone?

"Hey guys," said Audrey, plopping two oversized grocery bags down on the counter. A dull, distracted, "Hey" emanated from the apartment. It sounded like three voices - one was missing. She quickly took stock of the situation.

Michelangelo and Donatello were on the couch, playing head-to-head video games. More correctly, _Donatello_ was on the couch - Michelangelo was a little on the armrest, a little on the couch, and all over his brother. "Dude, what gives, I totally kicked your ass!" he grumbled half-heartedly, his body lurching in tune with the combat.

Leonardo was sitting at the table behind the couch. He had a book in one hand (was that the Hobbitt?) and a slice of pizza in the other. Of course. Even though he was leaning back in the chair with his feet partially on the table, he looked deep in thought. A piece of meatball from the pizza was dripping ever closer to the floor, missing his open mouth by all of an inch. Audrey shook her head. _This_ was what her cousin left her with - giant humanoid nearly-adult turtles. Leo had just celebrated his 23rd birthday, but she was still unsure as to their maturity. She whispered a small word of thanks to the ceiling.

Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo...that left one. She looked around the corner to see if he was hiding in the bedroom. "Anybody see Raphael?" she asked. The name seemed to pull Leonardo out of his reverie.

"Yeah, he's on the roof. He's been up there all night. What did you do to him?"

Audrey hit him playfully on the shoulder as she walked past to the fire escape. "Wouldn't _you_ like to know?" she said with a wink. Leo shook his head.

"Not especially, now that you mention it," he replied, finally taking a bite of the gooey mess in his hand. She chuckled.

"Oh, no way, unfair..."

"Fair's fair, Mikey - you know you had that coming."

"You suck. Okay, my turn to pick a character. I'm gonna get the biggest, baddest, and meanest of them all..."

"That's great, but Raph's on the roof - OUCH! What was that for?"

"He's our brother, man. He's mean, but dude can kick some serious booty."

"Yeah, I guess so..."

At the top of the apartment complex, Audrey saw a recognizable figure against the shadows. He was slouched over, the back of his red bandana swaying in the cool breeze. He didn't even see her approach; he jumped when she touched his shoulder.

"Everything okay there, slugger?" she asked softly. She'd learned to pose her questions gently and light-heartedly, fearful of his ever-pulsing anger. Ordinarily when something got to him, he'd push her away and make some sort of irritated comment. Now he just sighed.

"Yeah, I guess so," he echoed his brother. "I was just, y'know...thinking about what you said earlier."

"What, about the half-price deal at the Museum of Natural History? I think that's fair, since you guys probably _belong_ in the Museum of Natural History," she teased. He shot her one of Leonardo's famous "that was so not funny" looks, Funny - they fought to be different, but these brothers were so similar.

"No," he said, slightly agitated. "About what you said you could do for us."

"Free lunch at the cafeteria?" she guessed.

"No, geez, not that."

"Private planetarium showings?"

"Hey, come on."

"After-hours free-for-alls? Well, I guess I could talk to my boss about that..."

"_APRIL_, for Christ's sake cut it out!" he roared. He blinked and shook his head. "I mean Audrey. God, you sound just like your cousin sometimes."

She sat at the roof's edge next to him, drawing her knees up to her chest. It was so cold and damp up here. Why did he have to make this his private sanctuary, of all places? She looked up at the full moon above them, shaking a bit of hair from her face. "Sorry. I used to hear that a lot growing up. I really miss her sometimes."

"Me too. She took such good care of us, Splinter especially. She treated Mikey like gold. And Casey was the only one who could ever keep up with me. And with Donnie. And when he was with Leo - "

" - I get it. They were God's gift to mutants, I get it," she interrupted crossly. She knew, going into this arrangement, that this had been a tight-knit group. She knew that when April and Casey left to the west coast to start a life together, the boys had lost a best friend. She knew that was Splinter passed away last year, it would take a long time to pick up the broken pieces. She knew all of that. But sometimes, the constant reminders of how happy they were before her was unnerving. After all, hadn't she lost her cousin?

Raphael stiffened. He hated that word, "mutant", and she knew it. "Yeah, well, anyway...I was thinking about that spell you mentioned."

"The transfiguration spell?" she asked. She had teased him, but she knew exactly what thoughts kept him wrapped up here. She'd made mention of it earlier that morning after an exhausting search that had kept her up the night before. All of the brothers seemed shocked, but the opportunity to be human struck Raphael most of all. Maybe it was because he'd always wanted to be a loner, to branch out. Maybe it was because he hated being stuck in the odorous, damp, disgusting sewers day after day after day. But whatever it was, he just hadn't been himself all day. At lunch, when Audrey took her hour-long break to spend it with the guys, he was nowhere to be found. Had he been up here all day?

"Yeah." He looked down at his hands, rubbing the spaces between his fingers. "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I can't just go into it blindly. I mean, it's not just a rare opportunity - it's a life-altering one. Me, a human being! I could go out on the streets in broad daylight- broad daylight! - anytime I want. I could do as I please, go where I want, talk to whoever I want. I could - "

" - live the rest of your life without your brothers," she finished.

In his high-energy state, his temper flared. "Dammit Audrey, can I finish _one sentence_ without you barging in on it?!"

"Hey, Raph, chill. I just wanted to tell you that I understood what you were saying."

"How could you when you didn't even give me a chance to say it? Human or not, I don't need a babysitter. Not you, not April, not even Leonardo in all his infinite wisdom. Maybe it would be better to turn me human, after all." He got to his feet but stood in place for a moment, as if he didn't really want to leave. She knew he was rash, but even his moodiness couldn't numb the fact that he had a heavy decision to make.

She rose as well, taking his abnormally large hand in hers and lightly massaging it. "You know, if Splinter were here..." she cooed. But as gently as she tried to say it, it was possibly one of the worst things she could have said at that moment.

"_Splinter?!_" he cried, as if it were the most ridiculous argument he'd ever heard. "Are you throwing 'What Would Splinter Do?' in my face? Our sensei is _dead_, Audrey, and you never even knew him. What do you know about what he would have said? He'd probably tell me to drop you and strike out on my own for once. He'd say that this was a great chance for me to learn about myself or some crap like that. He'd say - "

"Master Splinter would never say anything like that," came a cool voice from the shadows. Both Audrey and Raphael turned on their heels to see who it was. Leonardo. Fantastic. She hadn't been around long, but long enough to predict what was about to erupt. She groaned inwardly.

"Leo? What the hell? Look, get outta here, this isn't your decision, a'right?" Raph snapped angrily, making a motion of dismissal.

"It isn't yours, either. It's a major decision that will affect all our lives. Don't dive into this head-first without thinking like you always do. We need to talk this out as a family." Leonardo's voice remained cool as he stepped out of the shadows. He had a dead-set, unwavering look in his eyes that only served to anger Raphael further.

"Yeah? Well I got news for ya - this body is sure as hell mine, and I'll do whatever I damn well please with it." His fist was clenched, and Leonardo was reaching uneasily behind him for his katanas. Audrey swallowed-hard-and started to back away toward the fire escape.

"Raph. Please. I don't want to fight you over this," Leonardo pleaded.

"Don't worry - I'm outta here anyway." Raphael did an about-face and, in a daringly impressive move, lept off the rooftop to an unknown part of the city. Leonardo sighed.

"Man, is that guy moody or what?" Audrey burst out. Leo approached the rooftop and looked thoughtfully into the darkness.

"Try living with him for 23 years." He turned and faced his companion. Even in the pale moonlight there were visible scars all around his face. His eyes appeared war-torn and heavy with concern. Raising his brothers even before the death of their adoptive father was taking its toll on him.

"Before I call a family meeting on this one, I'd really like to go over some things with you," he murmured, holding his hands behind his back and squinting up at the moon. "I'd like to know the details of this spell - when does it happen, what happens exactly, and how long will it last. Why him. And of course, I'll want to meditate on it. I really wish I knew what Splinter would say. It's such a difficult thing to decide. We've already lost our father. I don't want to lose my brother." There was a pain in his voice, as though his heart were about to break. He inhaled sharply. "He's always fought to break away, but now that the opportunity is staring us right in the face, I want him to stay more than ever. It was always, 'Raph, don't split up the team.' 'Raph, the team needs you.' Well, team be damned - _I_ need him."

Audrey understood where he was coming from, and she wanted him to release some of the tension before it ate away at his heart. But it was mid-March, and the breeze on the rooftop carried a bitter chill. She shivered and tried to coax him back inside.

"Leo - "

"I mean, I know he's hot-tempered and moody. Sometimes so am I. But he's my little brother. I've known him forever. I've watched him grow and wrestle with his weaknesses. I've seen him overcome obstacles that would have left me for dead. He's strong and he's passionate and - I love him. I just don't think we could live without him. We've been together for more than 20 years. We've never been apart for long. How could I even begin to move on?"

"Leo, come on. Let's make some tea and talk about this, just you and me."

He sighed, the heavy sigh of someone with the weight of the world on their shoulders. "Maybe later. Right now I just need some peace to think." He raced to the rooftop edge and, in a swoop even more graceful than Raphael's, pounced silently on the rooftop adjacent to theirs. Audrey paused for a moment to give him some time to go, then cried out in exasperation to the night sky.

"Thank you for making me an only child!"


	2. And she says, please: watch over me

"Yes sir. I realize that. Yes, I know. But there's a really important family thing - oh, well fine. Get back to me. But I'm still not doing it. No sir. Have you asked Avery? He has his doctorate in this sort of - yes sir. No sir. I know sir."

Audrey rolled her eyes at the voice barking orders on the other end. It was growing to such a pitch that she held her cell phone away from her ear, afraid of becoming deaf. As the man on the phone continued his tirade, she paced the length of the museum entrance in which she was standing. She dropped the hand with the phone down to her hip and stared out of the huge glass doors. _Sometimes this place feels like such a prison_, she mused, glancing idly at the walking stick tapping on the door. _What time is it?_ She checked her watch. _Gah. Only 11:30._

- Wait. Walking stick?

There was a short pause on the phone while Audrey moved to get a better look. A whisp of purple whisked past her vision and she jumped. Then it became clear. She rolled her eyes. _Oy, ninjas._

Regaining her senses, she realized her boss had become discomfortingly quiet. She raised the phone back to her ear reluctantly.

"Yes sir. No sir, I was not ignoring you. I was - being attentive," she offered, biting her bottom lip. _God I hope he bought that_. "Mr. Johnson, I have to go - Sandra's here with the morning reports. Yes, lovely chatting with you too. Mm hmm, you too now. Bye." She flipped her phone shut and looked around her. There were dozens of people meandering throughout the museum, just as one would expect on a Monday morning before Easter. Children were dashing between their parents' legs, yelling and pointing things out to one another. Parents were trying desperately to both keep track of their children and admire their surroundings. No, this was not going to be the place for this. As she debated with herself as to where she could find some privacy, she could have sworn she heard a voice lighter than air whisper,

"Planetarium."

It was so ethereal that she could have just as easily dreamt it. Despite all better judgment, a small grin spread across her face. There was no way around it; these boys were good. She faked her best "I'm someone important doing something important" pose and made her way to the Employee door to the planetarium.

Once the Authorized Personnel Only door was shut and locked, she ripped into her charge.

"_DONATELLO!_" she exclaimed, any semblance of patience gone from her voice. "You nearly gave me a heart attack! That was my boss on the phone - it was _really_ important! Do you _want_ to jeopardize this for Raphael?"

Similar to Leonardo's magic appearance trick the night before, a pair of hazel eyes slipped silently out of the darkness, followed by the rest of the figure of a man. He was of a smaller build than Leonardo, but retained enough of the same body style to make it apparent that they were related. His mutated form was well-masked by a waist coat three sizes too large and slacks. The wide-rimmed, 40's-style hat revealing only his eyes, however, was a bit much. She half-expected him to pull out a machine gun and tear the place to shreds.

"Hey, whoa, wait," he said defensively, with none of his older brother's smooth eloquence. "I had no idea you were talking to Jerry or Casey or whoever."

"Harry," she corrected him.

"Right. What kind of name is that, anyway? I'm telling you, if I had a name like that I'd - "

She clamped his mouth shut, trying hard to suppress a giggle. "I know, I know. But he pays the bills, so I've gotta respect him, okay? And so should you. Listen, we've got bigger problems. He wants me to go to Japan in June to help recover some artifacts for the museum. I don't know why he won't send an archaeologist or an anthropologist; I majored in religious studies for crying out loud - but anyway - he wants me there during Midsummer.

The light of amusement left Donatello's eyes when he realized the gravity of the situation. "But isn't that when you were going to do - "

" - the transmutation spell? Yes, and it's the only time the stars will be lined up just right for it. This is advanced magic, far more so than any I've ever done before. No one has ever tried to channel this energy the way I am, and if I intend to succeed, I've got to do it at exactly moonrise on the 20th of June of this year. I've got to be at an exact point in Connecticut, or it's all just going to be smoke and mirrors. I can't be gallavanting through Japan. We've got an extremely narrow window here."

"So when you accused me of deliberately jeopardizing this, by me you actually meant Harry."

Audrey exhaled so forcefully that her bangs flew away from her face. Genius of the family, huh? Brilliant. "Yes, Donnie, exactly."

He folded his arms across his chest in a confident gesture of determination. "Then we just have to make sure that doesn't happen. No biggie. We don't even know if we're gonna let Raph do it. Anyway, that's not what I came down here to talk to you about."

They were suddenly and unexpectedly interrupted when the Employee door swung wide open. A rush of light flooded into the dark room, catching Audrey off-guard. She let out a short "oh!", then quickly turned to see if Donatello was still there. There was no sign of him. Thank goodness.

"Oh, sorry Audrey, didn't know you were in here," came a light-hearted masculine voice. "Everything okay? Next show is in 20 minutes. I just came in to get it ready."

She breathed an audible sigh of relief. "Sure, Avery. Everything's fine. I was just-thinking, that's all. I've got some, um, family things going on right now. My brother, he's - he's really sick, you know, and I worry about him. That's all. I came in here to think, to be by myself."

"Nice try." Avery flipped on the auditorium lights, rendering her temporarily blind. "You're rambling. You always ramble when you're lying. And besides, you don't even have a brother."

He folded his arms across his chest and leaned nonchalantly against the wall. The smug look on his face made Audrey angry for a split second. But then she remembered that she'd never been a very good liar. Besides, she'd been working with Avery for years, first as an intern, then as a partner in crime. She was more transparent to him than anybody. She opened her mouth to make up another excuse, then gave up.

"Yeah, you're right. Okay. Well, the part about having family trouble is true. There is something major - and I mean _major_ - going on with my family at Midsummer. The opportunity of a lifetime. I can't even begin to explain it to you. But Mr. Johnson wants to send me overseas right smack in the middle of it. I just can't let that happen. I mean, I am really, _really_ desperate to get out of it."

"Well, what's going on that's so important?"

"When I said that I can't even tell you, I meant that literally. I can't tell _anybody_."

"Not that, silly," said Avery, in that big-brother way he had sometimes. "What does Mr. Johnson want to send you away for?" He plopped down in one of the seats and folding his hands between his knees. Audrey sat next to him.

"He wants me to go to Japan to look into some samurai costumes that have been dug up. He wants to recoop them for the museum, and he thinks that I'm the best person to go negotiate for them."

"Clearly this isn't the job for you," Avery chuckled. "For one thing, they're not _costumes_, they're relics. Samurai uniforms are a pretty big deal. And for another, don't you have your masters in religious studies?"

"Yeah. Working on my Ph. D." She blushed a little when he corrected her terminology. Of all people, Avery was not the person she wanted to look stupid in front of.

"Right. I've already got my doctorate in both East Asian history and political science. As persuasive as you are, I don't think anyone could take care of this better than I can. Not to toot my own horn or anything," he said casually, raking back his sandy-brown hair with his hand. She just giggled.

"Of course not."

"But seriously. You're in the middle of your doctoral paper I assume?"

"Yeah. A little more hands-on research and I can wrap the whole thing up. God, I always wanted a Ph.D., but I never thought I'd be this close to it."

"I know what you mean. Well, how about we propose this to Mr. Johnson: You go over there in early June to look into the "costumes", as you so delicately put it, and covertly work on your thesis while you're there. Then, a few days before Midsummer, I'll take over to finish the deal and you can go home. He'll get his artifacts, and at a good price through me, ha ha...and you can go home and take care of your family. How's that sound to you?"

"Oh wow, that would be great! Sure you wouldn't mind?"

"For you? Not at all." Audrey all but squealed, giving Avery a quick peck on the check. The back of his ears flared with red. Grinning from ear to ear, she jumped out of the chair and bounded to the door. She paused with her hand on the doorknob, suddenly remembering something.

"Hey wait," she mused aloud. "How do you know when Midsummer is? I thought you were atheist."

There was a brief "deer in headlights" look to Avery's expression. "Oh, uh - I did some reading. I, uh, wanted to know more about that Wicca thing you said you did, um, heh, yeah."

With pleased, cat-like eyes, she opened the door and replied, "Nice try. Do you always ramble when you're lying?"

The back of Avery's neck was completely red by the time she left the room.

Audrey strolled self-assuredly back to the museum entrance by the subway station. When she stepped outside, the sun suddenly seemed to shine brighter. She was surrounded by people, but she had never felt so alone with the world in such a comforting way.

"Hey. Little miss sunshine. Mind if I interrupt?" Donatello's abrupt voice broke her daydream, and she plummetted back to earth. She shook her head and looked around her. The dark figure with the fedora from the planetarium was now standing next to her in broad daylight. His eyes showed more amusement than annoyance.

"Damn ninjas keep scaring the crap out of me," she muttered, all in one breath. Donatello just smiled, pulling down the front brim of his hat.

"Come on, let's go get something to eat. It's about that time anyway, isn't it? Besides, I never got to talk to you like I wanted to," he said, throwing his arm casually over her shoulders. She paused to ask where it was he wanted to go eat, exactly, but in a moment's time she realized it was a foolish question. As they walked, she took a second to look at the tremendous amount of muscle he'd been able to develop just by living on pizza. _Mutants indeed_, she thought, walking down the dark stairs to the subway. Donatello giggled.

"What?" she asked.

"Harry Johnson."

Above the subway, one could hear a loud punching noise, a cry of indignation, and a couple of giggling voices.


	3. This hope for answered questions

Donatello shoved a full half-slice of penne pizza down his throat. Audrey shuddered. "So now, what exactly did you want to talk about?" she asked, trying to simultaneously lean in closer and avert her eyes from his manic eating.

He swallowed so hard that she was sure he was going to choke. "Weh, fer wah fing, ah wav wahdrin iv - "

Audrey groaned. "Come on Donnie, finish chewing first. That's disgusting." He shrugged and took another hard swallow, this time following it with a swig of his soft drink.

"Hey, you asked me a question. Which would have been ruder - answering you with my mouth full, or ignoring you altogether?"

She dropped her head down into her hands. How could she expect _any_ of them to fit in with surface world? Perhaps the spell was a bad idea, after all.

"Never mind," she sighed. He opened his mouth wide for another bite, at which point she grabbed a hold of his wrist to stop him. "Now, before you take another bite, tell me what it was you felt the need to interrupt me at work for."

He reluctantly replaced his lunch to the paper plate in front of him. "Okay. What I started to say was, for one thing, have you seen Leonardo? Or Raphael, for that matter? They both ditched practice this morning, and it's just not like Leo to up and leave us like that. I mean, Raph is one thing. Sometimes he goes missing for days at a time, and he'll show up without a word. We sort of expect it by now. But Leo? Since Splinter passed, he's been working us harder than ever. Hey, you know a lot about the afterlife - is it possible to reincarnate into someone who's already alive?"

Audrey stopped picking at her own slice and looked up at him. He inhaled the last bit of his pizza without hesitation, proceeding to lick his fingers clean. She caught sight of his eyes. Where she expected to see pain and sorrow, like in Leonardo at the mention of their sensei, she now saw only mild curiosity. Just how much older was the eldest brother, anyway? She wasn't sure whether to laugh at his humor or sympathize with his pain. She reached across the booth and touched the crook of his elbow.

"Oh Don, I - of course not. You can't have two bodies with one soul. It would be chaos. No, from what I've been told, Leonardo has always been that way. I think that playing Brother's Keeper is his way of coping with his loss. And anyway, can you think of a time when he _didn't_ remind you of Splinter?"

Donatello tilted his head to the side in thought. "Now that you mention it...no, ha, you're right. But still. What happened up on the roof last night that made them both leave? Oh man, did they get into _another_ fight? Those two need constant attention when they're together. You would think that Leo would at least know better. I am getting _so sick_ of the tension between them! You said that spell was all about change. Do you think it'll have any effect on their relationship, maybe smooth it out a bit?"

"I don't know," Audrey answered truthfully. "I really don't know. It might, I mean, it's possible. But there's just so much more to it - "

He put up his hand to quiet her. "I know, I know. Dumb question. Listen, there's something else. Are you finished eating?"

Audrey gave a short laugh as she looked at her half-eaten pizza slice. "Yeah, I guess I am," she said, getting to her feet. She wrapped her scarf back around her neck. When she reached for her pea coat, she realized that it was in Donatello's hands, waiting to help her get into it. She smiled warmly. Always the gentleman.

"Good. Will you walk with me down to 22nd Street?" he asked, dropping the coat onto her shoulders. He picked his hat up off the table, twirled it impressively, and tucked it onto his head. He pulled the front down enough to disguise the fact that he was wearing a purple bandana over his eyes. As strange as people in New York City could be, he didn't think they would find it easy to accept a ninja wearing a waistcoat. He put his left hand into his pocket, inviting Audrey to loop her arm around his. When she did, he rested his right hand on hers and walked with her out of the door.

"Sure," she replied. "Not that it makes a terrible difference, but isn't 22nd Street directly above the sewer where you all used to live?"

Donatello's head sank and he sighed. "It is. That's the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. Mike and I want to finish going through Master Splinter's old things today. That's part of the reason we're looking so hard for Raph and Leo. I don't think it would be right to do it without them. And to be honest, I don't think I could hold myself together down there without Raph's wit and Leo's confidence. Mike is out looking for them right now. If he doesn't find them - do you think it would be wrong to go back without them?"

Now the sadness was full-blown in Donatello's expression. In the 20 seconds it took him to say all of that, he seemed to age 20 years. A year later and they still hadn't finished moving Splinter's memory out of the sewer? Audrey snuck her other hand around and squeezed his arm gently.

"You already know the answer to that. As a general rule, if something doesn't feel right, it probably isn't right. In my opinion, what I think you need to do is collect your brothers and go down there as a family. If they don't want to, make them. I know it's not the most fun thing in the world to do, but you're never going to heal if you keep ignoring it. Besides, you have more memories than just the ones with your sensei down there. Didn't you all grow up there, train there, fight there, bond there? If nothing else, it might be the one thing Raphael and Leonardo need to ease the tension between them."

He stopped right where he was standing, causing Audrey to nearly fall on top of him. "You don't think they're down there right now, fighting it out, do you?" he asked her, a genuine look of fear and concern plastered across his face.

"Only one way to find out," she answered, pointing down the street. 22nd was almost a block away, and from where they were standing they could see the manhole that would take them to the turtle's former sewer home. Suddenly Donatello appeared hesitant to move, locked into place. Audrey continued to pat his arm reassuringly.

"Come on," she cooed, coaxing him forward. "I'll even go with you. Everything will be all right. You'll be just fine. In fact, I bet your brothers are down there right now. All three of them. They've probably ordered Chinese and are going through your old macaroni art."

"No, I know my brothers," Donatello choked, shaking his head. If his face had been any paler, she was sure he would have thrown up by now.

"Yeah, you're right. Michelangelo hates Chinese. He's probably polishing off a slice of steak and potato pizza, or some other noxious combination."

"Mmm, steak and potatoes," he mused, patting his stomach hungrily. "I agree - not so good on pizza, but excellent as a soup. Ever had steak and potato soup? It's amazing."

"Can't say as I have, actually," she answered with a laugh. At least the mention of food brought some of the color back to his face. _Whatever it takes I guess_, she thought, _even if it does make my stomach churn._ She was reminded of the time they sucked down three large whipped cream pizzas, and she'd made the mistake of asking what was in it. Pizza dough and whipped cream. That was it. Foul. Audrey shuddered involuntarily at the thought of it. She imagined that, by the time they got down to the sewer, she would be a paler green than he was.

Once they reached the corner, Donatello stood a bit off to the side and gave his companion a sideways glance.

"Right. I'm going to go over and keep the coast clear for you. Run over and, by the time you get to me, I'll have the entrance wide open for you. Slip into the sewer, go down the ladder, and wait for me. Oh yeah - and hold your nose. It's pretty raunchy until you get down to - to the station," he stuttered, speaking entirely through the corner of his mouth. She didn't know whether to laugh or vomit. Luckily, she didn't have time to make a decision.

"Ready? On my count: one - two - three!" In a flash more fluid than lightning, he had pounced across the street and was already standing watch. He made a miniscule "come forward" gesture that she would have missed had she not been looking for it. She glanced quickly from side to side (for the sake of safety, naturally), then when she was sure it was safe, she blended in with a crowd that was crossing the street.

What happened midway across happened so quickly that her senses failed her.

Her foot slipped - she cried out - a hand grabbed her waist - darkness - damp stench - silence.

When she regained her senses, she realized that she was actually cradled in Donatello's arms. She took a deep, calming breath and made an attempt to get her feet. They were wobbly and uneasy, but other than her racing pulse and slight dizziness she was fine. Thank goodness. Her rescuer began to squeeze her joints and pat her muscles, she guessed to ensure that nothing was dislocated. She continued to take deep breaths as he did so.

"You okay?" he asked her with genuine concern.

"Sure, yeah, I'm fine." Nonetheless, he put his arm around her waist and encouraged her to lean against him as they plodded along. "What happened?" She was automatically on guard for anything. "Anything suspicious? Ninja activity? Oh my goodness - are the Foot still around?"

"No," he giggled, "you just tripped. I slid the manhole cover off with my foot, very covertly, and before I knew it you were falling. If I hadn't caught you, you might've lost an arm or a leg or even gone unconscious. Bet that's the last time you curse us out for being ninjas, huh?"

The smug grin on his face reminded her so strongly of Avery that she was tempted to hit him. But when she moved away from him, she found she was actually grateful for his presence. Her legs weren't broken, but she was too shaken to walk on them comfortably just yet. She clung closely to him for the sake of complacency.

"Yeah, well..." she trailed off.


	4. Cause we're lost without each other

**DISCLAIMER:** I don't usually do this (I feel like it's obvious and unnecessary), but due to the nature of this chapter I suddenly feel compelled to. _Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, including Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello, April O'Neil, and Casey Jones are registered trademarks of Mirage Studios. This fanfiction is based on characters from and draws partially from comic books created by Peter A. Laird and Kevin B. Eastman._ In short, I don't own the TMNT. I'm just having fun.

Michelangelo squealed with all the excitement of a prepubescent girl. "_Dude!_ My old comic books! These things are like, totally worth money now!" He dragged the ratty shoebox out from under his bed, blew the dust off the top, and plopped himself down on the floor to read them.

"Which ones?" yelled a voice from the bedroom next to him. It sounded a bit like Donatello. Mike flipped the first one open.

"The ones about us!"

That caught Don's attention. There was a brief pause, a loud shuffle, and in less than a heartbeat he was in the room.

"Oh man, I didn't know still had those!" Donatello exclaimed, almost as excited as Michelangelo was. "Throw me one, man!"

Raphael was walking past the bedroom with a bag full of garbage when he saw them, sitting on the floor with their backs against the bed. He snorted in disapproval.

"What are you two doing?" he asked, dropping the bag and leaning against the doorway. Michelangelo jabbed his finger at the comic spread across his lap.

"Raph, 'member these? The comics those guys put out about us? It was Casey's way of helping keep us under cover. You do remember, don't you, sour puss?"

The scowl that had previously crossed Raphael's face disappeared at the mention of the comic books. It was quickly replaced by an honest, amused smile. He left his garbage in the doorway and knelt down beside his brothers.

"Hah, oh yeah. How clever was that, going up to his college buddy and telling him about us? After all, wasn't like he was gonna believe him or nothin'. You can just hear it now - _'Hey Pete, oh man, I just had this wacky dream! It was about ninjas, dude, but get this - they were turtles! Ninja fucking turtles, how ridiculous is that?'_ Next thing you know we're on Saturday morning television."

Michelangelo giggled, now giddy as a school girl. "Remember how good the pizza always looked in that cartoon? All gooey and dripping and delicious? The pizza's good around here, but nothing like _that_."

"It's still on, man," Raphael said, rummaging through the shoebox for a comic to catch his eye. "It's all futuristic or some shit. I saw it on accident when I was flipping through the channels at Audrey's."

"Yeah right, _accident_," Donatello teased. "You were probably looking for it. You probably saw that ad on TV for the movie and got nostalgic. Anyway, that movie made you look good."

Raphael shoved him roughly, toppling his laughing body to the floor. "Shut the hell up. I'd kick ass as the Nightwatcher and you know it. What awesome friggin' weapons. Donnie, could you rig a couple of those for me?"

"Ouch, geez, no," his brother responded, rubbing sorely at the arm where he was shoved. "For one thing, hitting me doesn't make me want to make you an ancient Japanese weapon. For another, they're called _manriki_, and they don't come in pairs; it's one chain with a metal piece at each end. Don't you remember _anything_ from our training in Japanese culture?"

"Pfft, that's Leo's department. You two are the brains of the outfit. I'm just here to kick ass."

"That's right Don, it says it right here," Michelangelo piped in, pointing at the second page of his comic. It was a well-sketched image of two of the turtles sitting by while Splinter watched television. One held a book with indecipherable letters along the spine, looking agitated, while the other was taking a small screwdriver to a piece of circuit board. Michelangelo pointed to the two turtles far to the right who were in the midst of a vicious battle. "See? This sums Raph up in a nutshell." He handed the book to his brother, who proceeded to read from the speech bubble.

" 'When Raphael gets this way, you just have to wait 'til he wears himself out'," Donatello read. This earned him a second bruise, just below the first one. He yelped in pain and squirmed up to the top of the bed, where he felt he was safer.

"_Goddammit Raphael_, I'm just reading!" he cried. "And anyway, look what it says on the next page - 'and Michelangelo's almost as bad'. Why don't you punch _him_ for a change!" Donatello drew his legs up and nursed his wounds by continuing to rub them. A fire ignited in Raphael's face as he looked to his youngest brother with a fierce grin across his face.

"Great idea."

Michelangelo's eyes grew wide. He reached up and grabbed a pillow off the bed. "Hey, no, wait now - you're bigger than I am - so not fair - and anyway, what about the issue where you tell me you like me the best?!"

Raphael crawled over to Michelangelo, who was gripping the pillow in front of him like a shield. "That, little bro, was a comic book based on an imaginary group of mutated turtle ninjas. I'm the fucking Nightwatcher." On all fours now, he looked like a cat ready to pounce on its prey. He had a devilish grin across his face and a hand resting on one of his sais. Michelangelo swallowed hard.

"_But it's two in the afternoon!_" he shrieked, his voice as shrill as if he were still a teenager. The pitch made Raphael shudder openly, and he attacked his brother with his bare hands. Luckily the pillow caught the edge of his weapons, which he was quick to throw to the side.

"Some vigilante _you_ are, giving up your sais like that," Donatello commented from the sidelines. "What if your attacker took them? You'd be, how do you say it? Oh yeah - up shit's creek without a paddle."

The truth was, Raphael dismissed his weapons because he didn't want to accidentally hurt his brother. Though Michelangelo was certainly not his favorite brother - could he really pick one? - he was hesitant to draw blood from him in play. If anything, he had a particular bond with Donatello, and he'd wasted no time in branding him twice. Then again, there was something in the way that Mike innocently and probably unknowingly tempered his outbursts that presented a special bond as well.

Raphael chose not to choose favorites. He abandoned the hold that he'd had Michelangelo in and lept up on the bed. "You mean _these _weapons?" he growled, picking up a sai and twirling it impressively between his fingers. Almost instantly he had Donatello pinned, the very edge of his knives all but piercing the mattress on either side of Don's head. The dominated brother flattened his hands, slid them between the prongs, and swiftly pushed Raphael off of him. Caught off guard, Raphael tumbled off the bed head-first, landing on Michelangelo's hard shell and sending his sais flying. The loud clanging noise in the hall betrayed their whereabouts.

Now that Raphael was disarmed, Michelangelo saw the opportunity to tackle him. The two wrestled on the floor for some time before Raphael came up as the victor. In the interim, Donatello had grabbed his comic book and continued to read amid the noise and clatter.

By the end of the scuffle, both Raphael and Michelangelo were covered in cuts, bruises, and sweat. Mike used the respite to lay against the floor, attempting to regain his breath. The stone floor, covered by carpet only where the bed was, suddenly felt nice and cool against his cheek. Raphael was perched against the bed, rubbing a muscle that felt like it had twisted.

"Damn, Mikey," he commented in admiration, "you've gotten good. That _hurt!_"

"Thanks. I learn from the best, bro," Michelangelo replied breathlessly. He touched the bit of skin just beneath his eye where he suspected he'd be getting a black eye soon. It was extraordinarily tender. Yep. That was gonna be a bitch in the morning.

"Hey you guys," Donatello interrupted, completely oblivious to his sparring brothers, "check out how hardcore Leo looks on this page!" He put the comic in front of them to show them, but neither seemed interested in looking.

"Ooh, Leonardo, that reminds me - has he been in Splinter's study this whole time?" Michelangelo asked, suddenly concerned. He sprang up and grimaced, realizing he was still sore. "When I got here, Raph said he'd been in there all night."

"Yeah," Raphael replied, running his tongue along his teeth. They all seemed to be intact. "I'm pretty sure he spent the night there. I got here early this morning and peeked in to see him sleeping away in there. I think there's something wrong with him - he's having a harder time with this than any of us. We should go talk to him." He struggled to stand up, but Michelangelo held him back.

"I agree, but maybe you should stay here. Remember how you used to pick on him for being close to father? He may not take what you have to say very well."

Raphael gave a watery sigh of regret. "I know. I was just jealous. It's a sibling thing, you know, brothers are supposed to - "

" - fight over perceived affection? I don't think so," Donatello piped in. "I think you better let Mike take this one. We'll give them a few minutes, then go down and talk like a family. Besides, in his current state, he might be overwhelmed by all of us." Raphael implied his acceptance of this by getting up and sprawling back down across the bed. Don gave Mike a silent nod of encouragement, and the young turtle pattered softly out of the room.

"That's fine," Raphael murmured, closing his eyes and folding his hands across his chest. "Little guy gave me a run for the money just now, and I could use the recovery time."

"Not so little anymore, is he?" Donatello mused. He smiled as he looked down as his older brother. Raph was calm now, and when he was calm, he was excellent company. Sometimes he would say things that defied his 23 years, confusing him with a much older and wiser being.

Raphael grunted, rotating his shoulder in half-circles. "Still a little shit."

And sometimes not. Donatello laughed openly, leaning over to help Raphael out of his mask and arm and knee pads. It was a little difficult to recover from injuries with them, as they'd all learned by experience, and Raphael didn't utter a word of protest.


	5. I fear I'm losing you beneath my skin

There was a strong, heavy scent of sandalwood when Audrey slid open the door to Splinter's study. The room was dark save for the dozen or so candles burning on the table. The room was also empty but for the crouched figure in front of the array of candles. The blue bandana across the top of the figure blew with the brief breeze.

She took a step forward but Michelangelo held her back. "Go easy on him, all right?" he implored with a hush. "I tried talking to him but he's just not ready yet. If he gets upset, you know when to back out, right?"

She nodded. "Sure I do, Mike. I won't push. If family doesn't get his attention nothing will. I just want to try," she whispered. She gave his cheek a quick sideways kiss and entered the study.

It was Leonardo, as she expected, but he appeared twice the age he was when he left her. Though he'd only been gone for a day, his weight loss over the past year was more evident than ever. His cheeks were drawn and his eyes were drooping with both sadness and exhaustion. She touched his shoulder, drenched in the sweat of panic, and he began to tremble violently.

"Hey Leo," she offered softly, "I made you some tea." She set the steaming mug on the edge of the table so he wouldn't accidentally knock over the candles by reaching for it. "It's green tea - Donnie told me it was your favorite."

He squeezed his bloodshot eyes shut and turned his face away from her. "It was Master's favorite also. The mere smell of it makes me think of him."

She knelt beside him, but he continued to hide his face as though ashamed of his pain. "He also said you liked honey in your tea. He said that your father hated it and teased you relentlessly for drinking it that way. Said it defeated the purpose, or something like that?"

"He said it took away from the flavor. I couldn't handle the bitterness of it, and he used to poke fun at me for not being a man about it."

"You know, I never got the chance to meet your Master Splinter. What else can you tell me about him?" she asked gently, pressing her hands comfortably between her knees. Leonardo continued to keep his gaze straight through the floor.

"I wish you'd met him. He would have loved you. After all, I've never seen anyone calm Raphael down after a temper tantrum quite like you. It's like you have the secret button to his inner switch, or something. Father was always trying to get him to master his anger. He would have been pleased with you. Maybe then he could've gotten some training through to him."

A whisp of a smile tracing across his face told her that she was making progress. She smiled broadly. "I'm not _that_ good. He still snaps at me every once in a while. What kind of training did he try to give you guys?"

"Oh, the usual," Leonardo breathed heavily. "_Ninjitsu_ mainly of course, but also the art of weaponry, of culture, of keeping our cool under pressure. The art of stealth and smoothness. But he was more than that, Audrey. He was our father. He took us in and raised us despite the fact that he knew less about our origins than we do. He made us a family, and living without him - I just don't know how."

His voice was unsteady while he spoke, and he finally choked on the last couple of words. He buried his head deeply in his hands and sobbed. "Please don't take Raphael away from us. Our family is already broken, and without Raph, I think I would just fall apart. I'll take his temper and his bitterness and his fierce sense of rebellion. I won't even try to change him. Whatever he wants, he - he can even lead the team if he wants to. I don't care. Just please don't take my brother away from me. He, Don, and Mike are all I have left in the world."

Raphael must have perked at the sound of his name, because he was in the room before Audrey could even turn around. "Hey, big guy, I sure do appreciate the sentiment there," he commented, dropping to his knees next to his older brother. "But me, lead? Pfft, no friggin' way. That's way too much pressure, and you're too good at it as it is. And anyway, wasn't I always the last resort in those video games Mikey had because my weapons sucked?"

"They didn't suck; their range was too short, and those games didn't account for your stealth and speed." Leonardo was more ashamed of his tear-stained face than ever. He bent lower to the floor. "Not now, Raph. Please don't do this to me now. Don't play the 'I feel guilty and need to apologize' card." It was the angriest Audrey had ever heard Leonardo be. A flash of fire crossed Raphael's eyes.

"I'm not apologizing, and if I feel guilty it's my own feeling to reconcile with," he spat. "All I'm saying is - "

A quick look at Audrey was all Raphael needed. It was as though he'd been splashed from overhead by a bucket of ice water. He sighed loudly.

"All I'm saying is, I miss father too. And I miss the way we used to be brothers, fooling around and just being obnoxious teenagers."

In the back of her mind, Audrey was secretly relieved she hadn't been around for the teenage years. When she'd entered the sewer that night, Donatello and Raphael were sparring with no particular purpose in mind. She'd questioned their antics and they explained that they were "just fooling around". It had been all she could do not to roll her eyes and count her blessings for a life without brothers.

"You know, you guys can still be that way. Brothers take care of and look out for each other," she mentioned on verbal tip-toes. She took Leonardo's head in her hand and tilted it up so that it faced directly in front of him. His hands still clung trembling to his face. "I don't think that Raph gives two shits that your face is dirty from crying. If anything, showing weakness makes you a stronger leader. If you teach your brothers to be afraid to admit defeat, how will you ever get them to admit it to _you?_"

Slowly and carefully she peeled his fingers away from his face. His breathing was still labored from having cried uncontrollably, but true to her word Raphael didn't flinch in the least. On the contrary, he massaged Leonardo's shoulder affectionately.

"Look Leo, whatever falling-outs we've had in the past, I'm still your brother and I still love you. Whatever happens to us in the future, whether I become human or we all become man-eating robot dinosaurs, it doesn't matter. Family is family, man. Isn't that what you always told us? We gotta stick together. As much as it'll suck sometimes, ain't nobody taking me away from you. Looks like you're stuck with me, bucko. Ain't that right Audrey?"

She laughed. "Right."

"So listen, our new baby sister here brought us over some dinner. Steak and potato soup. Seems it was Donnie's idea or something. Why don't you go wash up and join us?" Raphael finished, leaving Leo with one last pat on the shoulder and getting to his feet. Audrey stopped him with an incredulous expression on her face.

" _'Baby sister_'?" she protested. "I'm not even related!" Raphael just winked and slipped out of the room without another word. She looked to Leonardo for an explanation. The color was already returning slowly to his face.

"Welcome to the team," he said, sniffling and wiping at his damp face with the back of his hand. Audrey remembered the handkerchief she'd been using to pull her hair back while she cooked dinner. She untied the knot, slid the cloth off her head, and handed the clean underside to Leonardo. He muttered his thanks and blew his nose. This itself was disgusting to watch, but at least unlike his brothers he didn't hand the filthy thing back to her. Instead he just left it on the table and rose shakily to his feet. Audrey grabbed his waist in a gesture mimicking that of Donatello's on their walk down. The turtle was a heavy one, not heavier than his brothers but thick with muscles nonetheless. She was hardly able to withstand his weight. Thankfully his intuition warned him and he gave her only the weight he couldn't manage on his own. She suppressed a giggle.

"I bought tequila and limes for margaritas - you haven't even touched them and you're already tipsy! Lightweight," she teased. Leonardo gave a small laugh. Hollow though it was, it was still a laugh, and Audrey was grateful.

"I dunno, I've never had a margarita," he said, dropping onto the living room couch. His brothers were on him in a heartbeat, Donatello with a warm blanket and Michelangelo with a large wooden bowl of soup. Raphael just snorted.

"So much for feeling the need to wash up, huh?" he quipped. Despite his comment, he was armed with a wet washcloth that he readily handed over. Leonardo rubbed his face with it vigorously.

"Hey Raph?"

"Yeah?"

"Man-eating dinosaur robots?" Leonardo lifted an eyebrow skeptically. Michelangelo, though, perked up immediately.

"_Where?!_" When his brothers laughed and he realized he'd missed the joke, he groaned and collapsed next to Leo, who trapped him in a headlock and rubbed his knuckles into his scalp. Mike howled and tore himself away, nearly spilling the soup in the process. Audrey just shook her head and proceeded to wipe the martini shaker clean.


	6. Go, if you want to go

"All right you guys, so here's how it works," Audrey began, sprinkling salt onto a paper towel. "Remember that movie, how the stars aligned and monsters came out?"

"Haley's Comet!" Michelangelo burst out excitedly. "I remember that part. That was the bit where I crashed my skateboard. Whoever wrote that didn't do their homework - I would never do that."

Donatello rolled his eyes. "If by 'never' you mean 'nearly always', then yeah, that sounds about right." Michelangelo picked up a pillow from the couch he was sitting on and launched it at Donatello's head. He missed by a fraction of an inch and only because Don had tucked his head into his shell.

"Yeah, well, you know what I'm talking about." Audrey continued salting the margarita glass rims, trying her best to ignore the familial scuffle. "In astrology, we believe that star alignment causes all kinds of things. Nothing as dramatic as monsters, obviously - as oblivious as New York City dwellers are, they'd notice if a monster or two were loose in their city."

Raphael snorted. "I doubt it. I think that movie was pretty dead-on."

"But what _we _believe," she continued without missing a beat, " is that when certain planets pass through certain constellations, things happen. It could be something as small as a rainstorm or as big as a complete personality change. I don't give much thought to astrology, or any sort of soothsaying for that matter, mostly because I'm more a 'here and now' kind of girl. But I was giving some thought to the fact that you guys have to stay undercover so much of the time. I started doing some research online, and I found out about some interesting things."

"You said that some star crossovers were how I was gonna become human," Raphael jumped in. He'd been mixing up the margaritas, which he turned over to Audrey. She distributed it into individual glasses. Michelangelo finished his given task of slicing up the fresh limes she'd bought and snuck past Audrey to wipe his hands clean.

"Right. So here's what's happening - Pluto is getting ready to shift into Scorpio. This is sort of a big deal, first of all because Pluto only comes around every 250 years. Last time these stars lined up, America was fighting for a revolution, and the whole world was changing. I'm talking _big _changes here. This is a time of strength, power, and prestige. The website also said that Pluto takes old forms and rearranges them into new ones. Since it's passing through Scorpio, it's most potent for those with Scorpio's characteristics."

"Sounds like Raph to me; he's potent and poisonous," Michelangelo commented, rubbing sorely at his injured shoulder.

"Not a _scorpion, _doofus - Scorpio. It's a Zodiac sign." Donatello clicked his tongue as if to say "I can't believe you don't know better" - then glanced for approval from Audrey. She grinned and nodded.

"Absolutely right, Don-o. Those born under the constellation Scorpio tend to be passionate, loyal, and hard-working. They can also be stubborn, hot-tempered, and rude."

All eyes in the room fell on Raphael, who was paying more attention to setting lime wedges on the rims of glasses than he was to his company. When he realized they were all staring at him, he stopped what he was doing. "What?"

Audrey giggled.

"So what you're saying is, something major is going to happen the likes of which no one has seen for 250 years, and Raphael is the most susceptible," Leonardo observed astutely. He was still deeply buried in the blanket Michelangelo had handed him. He was still shivering, so much so that Audrey hesitated making him a drink. She discreetly dumped one of the glasses back into the shaker, filled the rest of it up with water and more lime juice, and shook it. Despite her best efforts, Raphael caught what she was doing. She didn't see him watching her, and he kept quiet.

"That's exactly what I'm saying. Here Mike, would you give this to Leo for me?" She poured the re-vamped drink back into the glass and handed it to Michelangelo, who took a drink for himself and handed Audrey's concoction to his couch-ridden brother. Donatello and Raphael each took one for themselves, perching themselves on the couple of bar stools that were standing in the kitchen.

"So that's why it's gotta be me," Raphael mused quietly. Audrey clicked her glass against his.

"That's why it's gotta be you. Now, the mechanics of the spell are a little sketchy, mostly because I'm making a lot of it up."

Raphael almost choked mid-sip.

"Oh no, no no, that's not what I mean," she quickly backpedalled. "I'm not making up the _spell, _I'm just...putting a creative twist on it. You don't honestly think there's some tried-and-true method out there for humanizing a mutated turtle, do you?"

Raphael's eyelids lowered and his fist tightened around the stem of his glass. "I'm not a mutant," he said in a low rumbling growl.

"That's right - he's the fucking Nightwatcher," Donatello piped in. "He told me and Mike straight out."

"You're not really, are you?" she asked warily, lifting an eyebrow. Raph shook his head, looking almost disappointed.

"Nah. But it'd be pretty damn awesome if I were. Goin' around, bustin' up crime, just like the old days. Donnie won't make me the costume, though. Too bad - I could've kicked a lot of ass." He smacked his fist into his hand to illustrate.

"Oh come on Raph - we still fight crime," Leonardo protested, exasperated. "It's just not as intense since the Foot Clan fell apart. And that's a good thing - how many times did we stare death right in the face?"

"And spit? A hundred, maybe more." Raphael was getting restless at the mention of crime fighting. He got up, drew a sai out of his belt, and made as if to strike Donatello. Michelangelo inhaled sharply as he watched, but Don - by now accustomed to Raph's unpredictable temperament - didn't even bash an eyelash.

"Yeah, well, from what I saw, the Nightwatcher was kind of an asshole," Audrey said, plopping herself down in Raph's seat. "The world is better off without him anyway. At any rate, what this spell entails is - "

Raph whisked around and shifted the point of his sai from Don's head to Audrey's throat. "You calling me an asshole?" he threatened. Disgusted, she closed her eyes and counted silently to ten.

"Of course not," she said calmly, using just the very tip of her forefinger to touch the weapon's silver tip. It wasn't nearly sharp enough to cut her, as it was fashioned after a traditional set of sai, but the symbolism wasn't lost on Raph. Realizing that she wasn't threatened by his action, the rush of color left his face and he replaced the weapon back where it belonged. "You already told me you're not actually the Nightwatcher. And I believe it - you're headstrong, but you're not stupid."

He smiled so discreetly that she only recognized it by the eyetooth that was revealed. Donatello mouthed the words "thank you" to her over her head. She just nodded.

"So Audrey - what exactly about this spell are you getting creative with?" Leonardo questioned from the other room, taking a small sip of his drink.

"Well, here's the deal - the stars are going to line up in such a fashion that causes dramatic change and shifts, right? Now, Pluto is especially well-known for taking things in the process of shifting and finishing the job. Like helping to finish a project at work, that sort of thing. So what I figure is, you guys are physically in the process of shifting - you're half-human and half-turtle. Sort of stuck between species. Raph, I saw that. Don't be offended; it's just the truth. Listen. What I'm figuring is, you're stuck in the middle of a transformation from turtle to human. I'm hoping that the energy given by Pluto is enough to finish the job."

"Okay, sure, that makes sense," Donatello said thoughtfully. "So you're gonna use all of the magic available to you to concentrate that energy into transfiguring Raphael."

"Exactly right. That's why I want to do it on Midsummer while the moon is rising. This is supposed to be the most energized time on the Wiccan calendar, the time when all magic performed is the most potent. Since transfiguring Raph is a big project, I need as much strength and power as I can draw from the universe."

"So why Connecticut?" Michelangelo, who had hitherto been quiet, asked. "Is that where a giant portal into another dimension is gonna open up, like in the movie? Is that the point where all the stars are gonna line up to? Ooh - will there be an explosion?"

Audrey just laughed. "No, Mikey, sorry - none of that. I just need an open field big enough to perform the spell, yet well-hidden enough to not be interrupted. I grew up in Connecticut and I'm familiar with the perfect place for this."

"Will you guys be coming back afterward?" Leonardo asked quietly.

"Maybe. If I feel like it," Raphael answered nonchalantly, glancing into his half-finished drink. Audrey shot him a dirty look. "Oh, of _course _we'll be coming back, bro. We're a family, remember? And anyway, I intend to keep pestering Don until he makes me my Nightwatcher costume."

"Fat chance, Raph," Donatello said, giving him a sideways look. "You're never gonna talk me into it."

_"Raphael, you leave that sai right where it is!"_


	7. I've lost too much to your stare

It started as a snort from Donatello. He clapped his hand over his mouth to repress it, but he couldn't help it - in seconds he burst into a fit of giggles. Michelangelo, try as he did not to, was quick to follow suit.

Raphael grunted as he got up from the floor, dusting himself off. "Yeah, yeah - laugh it up, guys," he said, sitting back on the bar stool he had just fallen off of. "Could'a happened to any of you."

"Yeah, but it's funny 'cause it happened to _you_!" Michelangelo screeched. Something about watching his self-assured brother tumble to the floor was enough to make him double over with laughter. He had to grip the kitchen counter top to keep himself from falling over the same way. Donatello was almost laying across Mike because he, too, was crippled by the humor of the situation. Raphael narrowed his eyes. He had half a mind to knock Don out of his seat, very furtively, so that he would stop laughing. But then, something in his mind told him it would only make him laugh harder. He had to satisfy himself with giving both of his brothers a rough shove.

The following indignant "Hey!" caught Leonardo's attention. He was still wrapped up in his blanket, now lying with his head on the armrest, idly watching television. He sighed at the sounds coming from the kitchen.

"Would you guys please just stop fighting for once?" he asked half-heartedly. Raphael saw the shadows on his face, illuminated only by the dull glow of the television set. His face seemed paler than usual, even considering the bad lighting. Something was definitely wrong. His eyebrows knitted briefly with concern.

Michelangelo waved Leo off. Distracted, he lifted his head quickly, his eyes bulging wide. He grabbed Donatello by the arm as though something urgent had suddenly come to his attention.

"Donnie, oh man, dude, you know what would be awesome?" he said, his words slurred half by alcohol and half by excitement. Don's eyes were just as wide in anticipation. He shook his head no.

"A hammock!" Mike gestured toward the living room couch. "How cool would that be? We could set it up here, right where that couch is. We'll string it all the way across the room; it'll be HUGE! Ah, man, that would be great. Why have we never thought of that before?"

"And what exactly would we do with a hammock?" Donatello criticized, curling his knuckles against his hip. "Sit in it and read? We're ninjas, for crying out loud - not literary college dropouts."

Mike pouted. "I just think it would be the perfect place for you to sit and read those manuals you're always up all night with. It would be _sooo_ comfortable! Tell him, Raph."

But Raphael's thoughts were tied up in his eldest brother. He hadn't been right for months, and ever since the previous night when he fled the apartment to spend the night here, he'd seemed exceptionally off. Then again, he _had_ spent the night in Splinter's study. None of the boys had ever spent much time there if they weren't being scolded or rewarded for something. They all knew that their sensei had long ago been a member of the Foot, and that the Foot was notorious for using black magic. Was it altogether impossible that there was still some black magic lingering in that study? Raphael shuddered to think of it.

He ignored Mike's call for help and walked over to where Leonardo was lying. While keeping watch over the brother that got under his skin the most was not his favorite way to spend an evening, he felt partially responsible for his condition. His guilty conscience kept him there more than anything else.

"Hey man, what're you watching?" he asked softly. Leo barely moved his head in response.

"Was watching CSI. Hated it, flipped the channel, watching the news."

Raphael sat in the chair nearest to Leo's feet and settled on watching the news with him. The tequila was starting to make his eyelids feel extraordinarily heavy, and he could think of worse things than falling asleep here.

"Anything good?"

"Nah," Leo replied, "it's the news, it's never good. Japan has been all over the news lately with their gang wars. It's wreaking havoc in the economy all over the world. It's funny - Karai came here to stop the gang fights once Shredder was dead and the Foot fell apart. Now she's gone too, and even the original branch can't hold itself together."

" _'A house divided against itself cannot stand_ '," Raph murmured, recalling an old quote that their father had said time after time after time.

Leonardo visibly stiffened. "I know that," he said sharply. "I just wonder...sometimes...if the Foot would have been different...if she..."

Raph lifted an eyebrow. It was no secret that Karai, once leader of the Foot Clan in Japan, held certain sympathies toward Leonardo. Sometimes the brothers would go so far as to tease him and call them an item. They both vehemently denied it, and Raphael was sure that, given the opportunity, Karai would have slashed Leo's throat if she'd had to. Nonetheless, they were both obsessed with the concept of old-fashioned honor and grace, and it forged an uneasy bond between them. When Leo had learned of Karai's death at the hand of a minor Foot ninja some three or four years ago, he refused to seem upset or distraught. Still, there was no hiding the fact that he thought of her more often than he had any right to. Donatello and Michelangelo had accepted it ages ago, but Raphael was still having some difficulty with it.

"It's in the past bro, don't think about it," he muttered. Leonardo sighed heavily.

"I know."

They watched a brief segment about keeping families safe during the upcoming Easter holiday.

"Hey Raph?"

"Yeah?"

"You think Audrey will be okay, traveling to Japan in a few months with all that fighting? She's not like April; I don't know if she can defend herself against a truly skilled ninja."

"You don't think so?" Raphael scoffed. "I've seen that look she gives you. She could wipe the floor with you any day of the week."

"I'm serious. I'm worried something will happen to her, and that she won't be home in time for Midsummer."

"What, this whole me-turning-human thing is all of a sudden important to you? I thought you didn't even want me to go through with it."

Leonardo sighed again, that deep-rooted sigh he gave so often. As though he held the whole world on his shoulders, and it was going to come crashing down to break him at any moment.

It was that broken sigh that Raphael hated. He gritted his teeth and gave his best effort to forget it.

"I never said that," Leo replied calmly. "If it'll make you happy, by all means, finish the mutation. It'll sure make things easier when you get caught doing something stupid on the surface."

_Is he_ deliberately _trying to piss me off?_ Raph thought, clenching his fist so tightly that the nails were digging into his skin. "What do you mean, 'something stupid'?"

"Like running off and being all Nightwatcher vigilante!" Donatello unknowingly cut the tension growing between the two by tossing a seat cushion from the bar stool at Raphael's head. He turned his head quickly and narrowed his eyes at his elder brother. MIchelangelo smacked him - hard.

"Way to wake the sleeping dragon, Donnie."

Raphael grinned, that same deviant grin that spread across his face when he'd pummeled Michelangelo earlier. Don swallowed and tensed, trying to brace himself for the fight. On the inside, Raph was grateful for the distraction. He and Leonardo had never gotten along particularly well. Leo just seemed to have a knack for saying and doing things that drove him mad. More than likely it wasn't intentional, but when he threw around words like "mutation", it hurt nonetheless.

"Ah, relax dude," he said, waving Donatello off. "I'm too drunk to hurt ya much, anyway."

"Yeah, we noticed that when you fell," Michelangelo said, then slapped his hand over his mouth and gasped like he knew it was a mistake.

A single sai flew through the air and struck the wall just shy of his head, singing with the vibration of the strike.


	8. I'm up against a wall I can't ignore

Funny thing about this story - the timeline is all screwed up! I've just realized this. For the sake of continuity, let's say that this takes place in 1995, and the TMNT CGI flick came out around then. CRAZINESS I know, but it'll flow better that way. Trust me.

Donatello slid Audrey's hands along the bo staff, positioning them more correctly. "There you go," he explained, "just like that. That way, when you bring it up in front of an attacker - like this - you can use the leverage to increase the force of your blow."

Raphael was walking past the dojo on his way to the kitchen when he heard Donatello's voice. The sliding door was open just a crack, enough to enable him to peer into the room without being seen. Which proved to be a blessing in disguise, because when he caught sight of Donatello standing behind Audrey with his hands over hers, his heart skipped a beat with jealousy. She was focusing hard on what her teacher was saying. Her eyebrows were curled in concentration, and her tongue was poking ever so slightly out of her mouth. Raphael couldn't help but smile. She just looked so damn..._cute._

He shook his head violently and walked away.

Nearly a month ago, he and his brothers had decided to teach Audrey everything they knew about martial arts, for the sake of self-defense. They taught her a bit about _karate_, a bit about the art of concealment, and bit about weaponry. To this end, Donatello had suggested they make her a staff similar to his, just a little sturdier. He reasoned that a bo staff could easily be disguised as a simple walking stick, and was well-known for being a defensive instrument. If she were seen using it against an attacker, it would be easier to explain it as a move of self-defense. All four of the turtles had taken turns in training Audrey, but as the bo was Donatello's primary weapon, he alone trained her with it.

For some reason unbeknownst to any of them, Raphael seemed to be the most protective of her. He stayed with her late into the night, night after night, showing her target joints and evasive maneuvers. Leonardo, weak as he was, called him out on it one morning.

_"Raph, I haven't seen you this wrapped up in training since the last time Master Splinter was kidnapped."_

_"Well, ya know, I want to make sure she's ready."_

_"Don't you think you're working her just a little too hard? Come on - you've always hated it when I've done it to you."_

_"This is different. She doesn't know what she's in for."_

_"Aren't you the one that told me you were sure she could defend herself?"_

_"Shut the hell up."_

It was Raphael's favorite way to end an argument, the expression that told whomever he was arguing with that he was through being rational.

And there was certainly nothing rational about the way he was acting.

He finished his trek into the kitchen, grabbing a small plastic bowl from the cabinet and filling it with warm water. He took a washcloth from the sink, threw it into the bowl, and headed upstairs to Leonardo's bedroom. The night that the boys had gone through their old things - also known as the night that they discovered Michelangelo and tequila didn't mix - they had all fallen asleep in various places in the sewer. Leonardo didn't wake until late in the afternoon. Michelangelo and Donatello were sure it was the result of a bad hangover, but Raphael explained what he'd seen Audrey do while making their drinks. Their brother was sick, and none of them could understand why. Afraid to move him, they agreed to stay in their old home, watching over him. It was a reunion of sorts as they rediscovered belongings they'd forgotten they had. Before long, it was an unspoken knowledge that they had moved back in for good. They took what few things they'd been keeping at Audrey's and brought them back to the sewer.

She was secretly relieved to have her apartment to herself again.

Raphael pushed the door to Leonardo's room open. Leo was sitting up in bed, a couple of pillows supporting his back as he sat cross-legged in front of the television. Michelangelo was there too, lying on his stomach facing the TV, his head propped up in his hands and his legs crossed behind him. Raphael was expecting his eldest brother to be asleep. He set the bowl and washcloth on the dresser next to the bed.

"Hey Raph," Michelangelo greeted him. "Want to come sit? We're watching _Batman Forever_. I think I might go make some popcorn in a little bit."

"Nah," he replied, shuffling his feet awkwardly. "I don't want to catch it in the middle, and I certainly don't want you guys to have to restart it for my sake."

Nonetheless, Leonardo paused the movie and tilted his head toward Raphael. "You okay there? You've been awfully quiet lately."

"Yeah - I haven't gotten a good beating from you in a while." Mike's words were muffled due to his hands covering most of his mouth, but the message was loud and clear. Raphael rolled his eyes.

"Haven't had to. You've been on your best behavior. And yeah, I'm fine." He changed his focus to Leonardo, mimicking the head-tilt in all seriousness. "How about you, fearless leader? How're you feeling?"

Leo shrugged weakly. "Okay I guess. I felt okay enough to go through some kata stances with Audrey earlier. Wiped me out though, which is why I'm here."

Michelangelo, ever the innocent, swatted at Leo's hand. "Dude, come on, let's finish the movie! I love this part!" Leonardo gave him a sideways glance. Sometimes it was more like having a pet than a baby brother.

"Mikey, if you've already seen it, and you already know what's gonna happen, what does it matter _when_ I unpause it?"

"_Because_," Mike said pointedly, "the sooner you unpause it, the sooner I get to see Batman kick that guy's butt, and the happier _I_ will be."

It was a flawless argument. Leo reached over and rubbed his knuckles affectionately into Mike's head, who squirmed uncomfortably. "Whatever makes you happy, little bro. Raph, will you be home for dinner? Audrey said she'd take care of it, which means there's certainly going to be something delicious coming out of that oven tonight."

"Sure, I ain't got any plans," Raphael answered. "I think I might take a walk around Central Park for a while, keep an eye on things, y'know...the usual. But yeah, I'll be home before dark."

"Okay. Just - don't doing anything stupid, all right? We really need you here."

There was a brief moment during which the two turtles stared at each other, neither loving nor loathing each other. It was the sort of silent fight between family members that never lasted very long but allowed each to make their point. Raphael sighed through gritted teeth.

"No. Problem."

Filled with boiling tension, he left the room, shut the door behind him, and back-flipped from the second story hallway to the living area below. The force of the flip was enough to cause blood to rush to his head, relieving him of his knowingly-misplaced bitter feelings. He exhaled loudly and crossed into the dojo.

"Now, are you _sure_ that sort of thing isn't illegal?" Audrey questioned. Donatello shook his head, taking the staff from her and resting it on the floor like a walking stick.

"You should be fine. It's not going to kill anybody; just immobilize them temporarily. Besides, if it's your life or theirs, does the law even matter?"

Audrey suddenly noticed that they had company and smiled warmly, pushing a piece of hair that had fallen loose away from her sweat-covered forehead. "Hey there," she said, "we were just practicing. So, you know, you don't have to work with me tonight. We've been working for _hours_, right Donnie?" She glared at her teacher.

"Oh - right. Hours, man. Been here all day," Donatello said quickly, wiping his brow to show off their hard work. "Whew, I'm exhausted."

"Don't worry - I'm not really in the mood to train tonight, anyway," Raphael said. He knew what they were doing, and didn't care enough to fight them on it. "Actually Audrey, I came in here because I wanted to talk to you about Leo. I know you had your nurse friend come look at him today."

Audrey immediately recognized the look of disquiet sprawled all over Raphael's face. "Yeah, absolutely," she agreed. She pulled a towel from the bar that ran along the wall of the dojo and used it to wipe her face.

"Er - if it's about Leo, do you - um, that is, would you - " Donatello stuttered.

"Wouldn't mind at all if you wanted to join us," Raphael finished. Donatello rubbed his hands together nervously.

"Okay cool. I'll go make us some tea."


	9. Thinking, this can't be real

_** Earlier that day **_

The sun beamed brightly into Audrey's living room, spilling over the coffee table where she, Avery, and Avery's sister Rose were sitting down to breakfast. There was a half-empty, ornately decorated tea kettle perched in the middle of the table, surrounded by various kinds of pastries that hadn't been touched for hours. Rose was in the middle of an anecdote that required her to gesture with a barely-eaten raisin muffin.

"...and I'm just like, are you _kidding_ me? Did you seriously just ask me that?"

Audrey laughed in response, sipping her mostly cold tea. "I know, some people are so ridiculous. You know what frightens me most?"

"The fact that these people vote?" Avery cut her off. She pointed at him excitedly.

"Yes exactly!"

Rose shook her head while the other two shared a good laugh. "Unbelievable."

Audrey set her tea cup back onto the table and dusted her hands off from the scone she'd just been munching on. She was having an excellent time - her companions were wonderful company - but she had something serious to discuss. She coughed, trying to clear her throat. "Anyway you guys, there's a reason I invited you over for breakfast."

"What, you didn't just want to hang out with us?" Avery asked, pouting for effect while tearing a huge chunk out of an onion bagel. He leaned back casually into the couch and set the bottom of one foot against the edge of the coffee table. At times like that, he reminded Audrey strongly of her cousin's now-husband. She smirked.

"Of course I did. But I actually wanted to ask a favor of you, Rose." Rose, 5 years her brother's senior and far more intuitive, was immediately hushed by the expression on Audrey's face.

"Sure hon, whatever you want."

Audrey had rehearsed this speech a hundred times, repeated it in her head for days, over and over and over. She'd written it, re-written it, and revised it more times than she could count. Now that the time came to deliver it, she found the golfball-sized lump in her throat refused her permission to do so. Rose smacked her brother, who dropped his foot down and sat up attentively.

"Well, I know that you're a nurse, and...well...this is going to sound crazy, so you really have to go with me on this one. Just listen, don't say a word, and if you don't believe me at first, pretend to, okay?" Audrey breathed. She knew she had their attention now; both of them looked seriously worried. She rubbed her hands together nervously and looked down at the floor for help. Her hands were shaking badly. They were going to think she needed a shrink.

"Okay. Here goes. I don't know how to tell you guys other than this - did you ever watch the old ninja turtle cartoons on Saturday morning when you were kids?"

Avery laughed with nostalgia. "Oh sure, I used to love those guys! Remember Rosie - I had all those action figures?" Rose rolled her eyes.

"I remember. For years, you weren't happy until you had every Leonardo toy known to man."

"I think I still have them! They're probably rotting in dust and mold in Mom and Dad's basement, but I don't remember ever throwing them away. Why? What do they have to do with anything?" Always the comedian, his eyes widened and he reached over for Audrey's hand. "Oh Audrey - have you developed a turtle fetish? I know that movie came out a little while ago; are you into turtle porn?"

The fact that she knew the turtles personally made the comment strike too close to home, and she swatted his hand away forcefully. "Of course not! Avery, I'm being serious here." She closed her eyes and gave a lengthy exhale.

"They're real."

Rose and Avery exchanged looks, unsure of what to say. Avery's mouth opened and then closed no less than three times. _Great_, she thought, _they're going to institutionalize me._

"They're real," she repeated. "Not, you know, real-life cartoons running around New York City looking for a good place to grab some pizza, but - real. There was a real incident involving a chemical mutation, and it really did affect four turtles later named after Renaissance artists. Splinter, Shredder, the Foot - they're all real. Look, you remember my telling you about my cousin April?"

Avery nodded for lack of any other response. Audrey remembered how shocked she was when she first heard the news. She too refused to believe it until she'd met them. Perhaps that was what needed to be done for them as well.

"She married that sports announcer, right? Casey?"

"Right. Do you remember what I told you April did for a living?"

"Sure, she was a - journalist." The last word came as a revelation to Avery, almost as much a shock to him as the rest of Audrey's explanation. Rose blinked, then shook her head in disbelief.

"No, that's not right. I saw the movie, I remember the cartoon. Casey was a hockey nut, he _played_ professionally, and April was a news reporter, not a journalist for a newspaper like you said."

"Well, how else do you think they kept the two of them from collecting royalties?" Audrey leaned in closer, as though to drive her point home. "My cousin's name is April Donahue, and she married Casey Osbourne. They met the turtles years ago. Obviously they had to do all sorts of things to keep the boys' identity secret. Can you imagine what would happen to them if anyone found out they existed? It would be madness; their lives would be ruined. So what Casey did to preserve the secret was to hide it out in the open. He brought them up as an incredulous idea to some college buddies of his, who he knew were in the process of crafting a comic book. They loved it, and _voila_ - they're part of pop culture. Their secret has been safe because of disbelief like yours.

"Naturally, some things are different. They changed April and Casey's last names to give them credit for the idea without having to give them money. And they made them a bit more violent than the boys actually are. They haven't had nearly as many evil villians to contend with. But when it became a cartoon to market them to children, well - Raphael's thrill of the hunt is a lot closer to what Casey fed to his friends. Really you guys, you have to believe me. I need you to meet them."

There was a moment of silence after she finished. She was breathing heavily and starting to panic. _I don't know what else to tell them. How did _I _become convinced?_

"Audrey," Rose said uncertainly, "I don't know. It all sounds like it makes sense, but...walking talking turtles? Who practice _martial arts?_ Doesn't that seem...far-fetched...to you?"

"Of course it did when I first heard about it!" she exclaimed. "Are you kidding? I thought April had had one too many bumps on the head when she told me. Wait - maybe this will help."

Audrey bent over and reached underneath the sofa where she was sitting. Raphael had allowed her to borrow one of his sai in order to better convince her friends, and she had tucked it underneath the sofa for the right moment. Now seemed as good a time as any. When Avery's eyes fell on the gleaming weapon, he gave a quiet gasp.

"No way," he whispered, reaching for it. Audrey handed it to him easily. He grasped it comfortably in his hand, twiriling it around like an expert. He ran his hands along the center spike in admiration.

"It's a sai," he remarked with awe. "And it's made in the old style. Look, see? There's no point at the end. It delivers a stronger blow that way. It looks old too, like it was made hundreds of years ago. But that's not possible - Japanese weapons like this are all in museums now."

Avery handed it back to her. "Big deal. You _work_ in a museum. You could have procured it from work."

"No, look," Rose pointed out, indicating a small stain at the tip. "Look at that. It's been used recently."

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "So? Maybe she was playing with it down in the basement and accidentally hurt somebody. Very easy to do if you don't know what you're doing."

Rose ignored his comment. "Hon, you said to pretend to believe you even if we don't. I'm finding this all incredibly hard to grasp, so I'm going to pretend. For your sake."

Avery's jaw dropped. He tried to protest, but his sister shushed him by pressing her forefinger against his lips. Her gaze never broke from Audrey's, so desperate to have her friends understand. Rose offered an honest smile.

"Take us to meet them."


	10. I was holding on, now I'm letting go

"So tell me," Avery asked, practically skipping up the stairs from the subway station. "Is Raphael really cool but rude?"

The sun was gaining in strength, nearly blinding the trio as they climbed up the cool cement stairs. Rose was quiet, full of worry and anxiety about her friend, but Avery acted as though someone had told him Christmas was coming early this year. He had an added brightness to his already warm chocolate-brown eyes, and an extra lightness to his step. He shook a lock of hair out of his eyes impatiently.

"Rude maybe, but cool? Depends on your definition I guess." The wind was blowing abrasively, as it tended to do in the city. Audrey hugged her long sweater more closely to her body. She had tucked Raphael's sai into her belt, and if anyone saw that she was carrying a medieval Japanese weapon she was going to be in more trouble than she was ready for. She led the way down 21st Street with Avery right at her heels. Rose walked a bit further behind, her eyes darting about as though their destination were obvious.

"And how about Michelangelo? Is he really a party dude?"

They stopped at the corner of the block, merging with a group of four or five other pedestrians. Audrey kicked at a loose piece of pavement. "Not really. Well, no more than the rest of them. Although he does have a particular attachment to that skateboard of his..." She looked up and tilted her head at Avery. His eyes were full of little more than innocent curiosity, but she couldn't help but wonder.

"Wait a minute. Are you patronizing me?"

The electric lamp on the opposite side of the street indicated that it was safe to walk. As they crossed, Avery answered defensively, "Not at all! If I wanted to patronize you, I'd do this." He slung his arm casually over her shoulders and spoke as they walked. "Babe, I _totally_ believe you when you say that there's giant green turtle-shaped men walking around New York City. Totally."

She pushed him away roughly, but smiled in spite of herself. Leave it to Avery to have a sense of humor in a stressful situation.

They approached a manhole sitting just shy of a crosswalk in the middle of 22nd Street. Audrey remembered it from the afternoon when she'd accidentally fallen inside of it. She crossed her fingers and whispered a brief hope that the incident would not repeat itself. She knelt down and slid it open with some effort. Avery and Rose watched her with mild curiosity.

"Oh man. You're not serious about this, are you?" he asked, eyeing the bottomless darkness uneasily. He and his sister exchanged looks. Audrey looked up at the electric lamp across the street. It was flashing orange.

"Yes," she said, "and we have to do this now, before a car comes by and sees us."

With that, she hopped into the hole and scooted down the ladder.

"Or hits us," Avery added, crossing his arms apprehensively. Rose nodded her silent agreement. She swallowed hard, bit her tongue, took a deep breath, and plunged after Audrey. The crosswalk lamp displayed a steady orange hand, and a mountainous pickup truck was tearing its way toward them. Avery struggled to forget the giant lump in his throat.

"_Avery!_" hissed a female voice from the darkness. Whom it belonged to was indiscernible; all he knew was that he was being beckoned downward.

"Okay," he said softly, more to himself than to anyone else. "Leonardo, this is for you. You better be real."

---

Audrey held her breath as she heard Donatello creep open the makeshift door. She clutched Avery's hand with one hand and Rose's with other. Silently she begged her heart to slow its marathon racing.

"Hey." Donatello stood in the doorway between the entryway and the living room, smiling invitingly. Audrey sensed both of her friends' hands shaking. They both looked like landed fish, opening and closing their mouths as though gasping for air.

"No freaking way," Avery finally managed to gasp out. Rose shook her head slowly from side to side in wild disbelief.

"Hey," said Audrey with a tone of awkwardness to her voice. "Donnie, this is my friend and co-worker Avery, and this is his sister Rose. Guys, this is Donatello. He's - "

" - a teenage mutant ninja goddamn motherfucking _turtle!_" Avery's voice rose with every word he spoke until it was just shy of a squeal. He started to circle Donatello, who was making a face of discomfort at the high-pitched tones.

"Not quite teenagers anymore; we're in our early twenties now, but yes to the rest of it," Don replied, gesturing as though he were rubbing the inside of his now-sore ear.

In awe, Avery proceeded to point out everything about him that he recognized from his childhood. "You totally have a purple mask, just like the cartoon! Do you ever take it off? To sleep I imagine, but do you wear it around the house - er, sewer? I never understood the point of those. They certainly don't mask your identity, or the fact that you're a giant turtle. Why do you wear them?"

Audrey groaned and buried her head in her hand, embarrassed. To her surprise, however, Donatello was little more than gently amused. "We like 'em," he said with a shrug. Avery giggled like a schoolgirl.

"I can't believe you're real," Rose finally choked out. Audrey was relieved to hear her speak; she was sure she was going to faint. She let go of Audrey's hand and gently touched Donatello's shoulder. His eyebrows furrowed inquisitively.

"God, your skin...smooth to the touch and warm like a man's, with muscle tone and a pulse and everything else you'd expect...but it's..._green_." She lifted her hand to brush it softly against his face. "Is it just pigmentation? How much of you is turtle, and how much is human? What kind of chemical mutagen did this to you? A rat with two heads is one thing, but...oh wow..."

Donatello inhaled sharply. He had never had anyone touch him as tenderly as Rose had, and it made his heart stop for a fraction of a second. "Mostly human, as far as we can tell," he said, struggling to control the shaking in his voice. "Got the shell of a turtle though. And our hands and feet are pretty turtle-esque. Few other minor things too, but I'd say 80 human. Maybe seventy-five."

"Rose, I'm really glad you believe me now, because - remember that favor I asked of you before?" Audrey asked. Rose nodded without turning her head away. "Well, I know that you're a nurse, and - something's wrong. With Leonardo. He's very very sick, and none of us can figure out why. I was wondering if you could just go up and take a look at him for me."

Avery knew that Audrey was deeply concerned, but he couldn't conceal his excitement. "Leo's here too? Oh man, he was my favorite one growing up! Uh, no offense of course, Donnie," he apologized quickly. Donatello lifted a hand to show that he accepted the apology. Rose broke her gaze to shoot a filthy look at her brother.

"Not now, Avie." She sighed deeply and looked back at Donatello. "80 human, hmmm? I suppose there'd be no harm in looking. I'm not a veterinarian, and I'm certainly not a doctor, but...I'll see what I can do."

Later that evening 

"This is really hard to say, you guys." Audrey sighed into the cup of strong tea that Donatello had made for them. "It's...he's...Leonardo is dying."

Raphael nearly choked. "D-dying? What do you mean, _dying?_" he sputtered. Donatello's hand flew over his mouth. Audrey fought with herself not to cry.

"Rose said that he's dying of a broken heart. It happens to humans more than the medical community would care to admit. They fall into a deep depression and it becomes a bottomless pit. They refuse to eat, they refuse to sleep, they refuse to spend time with other people. They become completely consumed by their pain, and pretty soon...they die of starvation, or dehydration, or exhaustion. Leo's heart is breaking, and I'm afraid of him spiraling downward like that."

Audrey looked up at the brothers. Raphael had turned his face away in a blatant refusal to accept what he was hearing. Donatello's head was hung so low that she half-expected it to roll away. She shifted more comfortably in her seat.

"But it's not - I mean, it's completely reversible," she added quickly. "He's still accepting company, though limited. Mike is up there with him right now, isn't he? So he's not really dying _yet_. But he could be. We have to lift him up out of his pain. Out of the whirlpool of depression. And we can't baby him. We can't let him fall. There's every hope in the world still left."

Raphael slammed his fist emphatically on the table, sloshing Audrey's tea all over her hands. She yelped with pain from the burn, but he didn't hear her. "_How could you!_" he howled, getting to his feet and almost bringing the table crashing down with him.

"How could you sit there and tell me my brother was dying - _dying,_ Audrey - and then take it back, just like that? How can you _fuck_ with my emotions like that? Don't you _ever_ do that again!" he cried, pointing a finger accusingly at her. She was so shocked by his outburst and by the tingling of her burn that words escaped her completely. He growled impatiently and stormed out, slamming the sewer door behind him with a deafening thud.

Meanwhile, Donatello had gotten up and was running a cloth under cool water from the sink. He sat down and pressed it gently against her injury. She bit her bottom lip, looking up at him for an explanation. He just shook his head.

"Don't mind him; it's okay. He does this a lot. He's just upset because he was starting to cry and, well, Raph's kind of a tough guy like that."

"Really? You saw tears?" Tiny rivulets of her own were forming down her cheeks from the pain of the sore.

"Totally. Crying like a little girl."

"Hey!" Audrey found herself laughing despite her tears.


	11. There's a feeling you keep brushing off

"I think you should come with me to Japan."

Audrey stood in Leonardo's doorway looking stiff and determined. She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes as if to prove that she wasn't budging. Leonardo muted the documentary he'd been watching on ancient China and looked up at her slowly. He blinked, the words barely registering.

"Um...what?"

"I leave two weeks from tomorrow," she continued, choosing to believe that he had heard her. "I can't sneak you onto the plane with me, but I know a way to get you there by boat. You'll be comfortable and safe, and more than that, you'll be well-hidden. We'll leave at the same time. I'll get there before you, get settled in and take care of some things I have to do for work. When you arrive, I'll come get you and we'll tour around together."

Her lips were thin and pursed - a clear sign that she wasn't about to take no for an answer. Leonardo inhaled deeply and exhaled loudly.

"Audrey, I don't think - "

"Wasn't your father Japanese?"

This struck a chord deep inside of him. He could almost feel his heart contract at the thought of it. His hand flew instinctively to his chest. A feeling similar to that of icy cold water splashed over him, and he shuddered. He shut his eyes so hard it hurt.

"Come on Leo," Audrey said, a bit more gently now. She sat on the edge of the bed by his legs, running her hands along them thoughtfully. "If you stay in bed any longer you'll die. I know you; you're not the type to lay down and watch the world pass you by. This would be such an excellent opportunity for you. Splinter would love for you to see the country that he called home for so many years."

"I hear Tokyo is just like here, only crazier," a young male voice interrupted. Michelangelo, who hadn't left Leonardo's side since he'd fallen ill, came bounding in the room. A bright smile crossed the elder brother's face at the sight. There was no room on the bed for Michelangelo to jump onto, so he settled himself cross-legged on a chair by the nightstand.

"Geez, I always wanted a puppy, but I didn't think I'd have to give up a brother for it," Leonardo said, rubbing his brother's head as though petting a dog.

Michelangelo pushed him away in an effort to ignore the condescending gesture. "Seriously bro, take lots of pictures. I'm so jealous! I'd _die_ to go to Japan. There's like, a bajillion more people there. Can you imagine what the crime rate must be? Raph would pee himself."

Audrey suppressed a giggle while Leonardo took a moment to think about it, then nodded in agreement. As though he knew they were talking about him, Raphael chose just that moment to enter the room.

"Well, speak of the devil," Leonardo commented.

"What?" Raphael took a moment to absorb the scene around him. Audrey and Michelangelo were giggling. Even Leonardo had a smirk of bemusement on his ever-thinking face. He knew they had been talking about him, cracking a joke at his expense, and he desperately wanted to spit something back but patiently held his tongue.

"Whatever. Audrey, Donnie wants you downstairs. He's trying to cook up dinner and wants a hand or two. Then afterwards I wanna practice with you in the dojo."

She groaned openly. Last time they had practiced together, she'd ended up at the chiropractor with a prescription for muscle relaxers. That was a week ago, and she wasn't sure her shoulder had finished healing. Michelangelo whistled.

"'Practice', huh? I've heard you guys in there, grunting and groaning...sounds like a lot more than just 'practice' to me," he teased. There was an audible snap as both Raphael and Audrey turned their heads to tell him off with their eyes. He put up his hands defensively, suddenly remembering how quick to anger his older brother was.

"Whoa, Raph, hey, it was a joke," he laughed uneasily. "Get it, ha ha? Don't - don't hit me - you gotta keep your strength up for - for training, ha ha..._don't look at me that way!_"

Leonardo closed his eyes and silently counted backward from ten.

Truth be told, Raphael knew he was training Audrey vigorously because he was jealous. He knew that he didn't have much to offer her that his other brothers couldn't, and when he saw them sparring so intimately with her it lit a fire in his heart. It was stupid; he knew there was no reason to be jealous. What was she, anyway? A love interest? Of course not. So what if he walked into the dojo day after day to see Donatello standing behind her, breathing down her neck, wrapping his strong arms around her small, delicate, curvy figure...?

His fists clenched unintentionally and he quietly cursed.

Audrey whined about the pain in her shoulder (which Raphael carefully ignored), then gave another relenting groan and kissed Leonardo quickly on the cheek.

Or at least, where his cheek would have been if he were human.

"Why are you taking _him_ with you to Japan?" Raphael asked suspiciously as soon as the door was shut. She crept slowly down the ladder that led to the first floor, purposely letting her right arm drag a bit. It didn't ache nearly as badly as it had a week ago, but she felt the need to keep up appearances nonetheless.

"You're not seriously asking me that, are you?" she answered breezily. "I should think it was obvious. For one thing, he could use a change of pace, a change of scenery. Locking himself up in that tiny bedroom of his isn't going to make him better any faster. For another, one of the reasons he's so depressed is how close he was to Splinter. I think it would be really healthy for him to visit your sensei's old hometown and get a better look into the life he lived before you."

Raphael skipped the last three rungs behind her and landed silently on the cement floor, nearly knocking her over in the process. "He's not the only one that misses Splinter ya know," he muttered under his breath. She either didn't hear him or chose not to; either way, she ignored his remark and snuck up behind Donatello in the kitchen. He was lost in thought over two gently-bubbling pots of liquid on the stove, his eyes narrowed with intense concentration. It would have been easy to assume he was working on another one of his gadgets or gizmos.

"Smells great," she commented, gripping his shoulders from behind so as to let him know she was there. She'd learned that, with the way the boys liked to horse around without warning, it was always safer to make her whereabouts well-known. She reached for the wooden spoon that was precariously resting on a ceramic plate and dipped it into the pot of sauce he was slaving over. Ever since she'd started coming by and cooking for them three or four nights a week, Donatello had taken an active interest in learning from her. This would be the first night he'd been left to his own devices, in a completely figurative manner of speaking.

"Mmm, it's wonderful," she mumbled through a mouth full of sauce. She giggled and wiped the excess from under her lip. "What are you so hard at work on?"

"Tortellini with garlic bread," he said proudly, standing a little bit straighter.

"Delicious." She put her hands on his arm and used the leverage to place a soft kiss on his cheek, the same way she had just done with Leonardo.

Without a sound, Raphael walked into the dojo, shut the door, and punched the wall as hard as he could.


	12. You feel like liberation

The car keys felt hot in Raphael's hand; he jiggled them between his fingers for relief. "What are you saying? Are you saying that you'll take Leo to Japan, and you'll let Donnie spend extra time training with you - hell, you'll even go with Mike for a stroll through Greenwich village - but you won't take a drive up to Connecticut with me?"

Audrey stood in the middle of her apartment with her hands on hips, her thick red hair tumbling over her shoulders as she cocked her head to the side. The light from the window that wasn't obscured by the drawn blinds cascaded over her form so gently that she looked like a painting. Raphael blinked at the magic she seemed to be making right in front of him.

Then she spoke.

"_Leo_ feels the need to keep an extra eye on me because of all the turmoil going on in Kyoto right now," she said, listing her defenses on her fingers. "Don trains with me because he's got the most experience with a bo staff. And Mike, well...the village is practically his natural habitat. Eastford is _three hours_ from here, and I've got loads of work to do before my trip next week! How do you honestly expect me to pick up and leave?"

"Like this." He grabbed her around the middle with one arm, hoisted her over his shoulder, and headed for the door. She shrieked from both surprise and the vertigo from being turned upside down. Since she was a child she'd been terrified of heights, and all of the turtles were a good head and a half taller than she was. Fortunately, Raphael was built thick from the muscle-building exercises he undertook regularly, and his stocky figure formed a buffer against her midsection.

"_Raph!_" Instinct told her to scream and beat against him, but the hilarity of the situation got to her too quickly and she began to laugh uncontrollably. By the time he'd gotten her to first floor of the apartment complex, she was hanging limp against him. Passersby did a couple double-takes (though not at Raphael himself, as he had mercifully appeared in Donatello's overcoat and fedora). Raphael simply waved and tipped his hat. Audrey, too, waved as well as she could from where she was.

"You suck harder than a whore at a frat party," she whined as she was dropped into the passenger seat of her Nissan convertible. She could see Raphael lift an eyebrow from beneath his red mask.

"That's, er...interesting." He slid easily into the front seat and started her car, suddenly erupting with laughter at her assertion. It had taken him a moment to adjust to the fact that she could say such a thing.

She crossed her arms, stubborn at the thought of being dragged away from home with such short notice. "I'm supposed to be learning Japanese and I've barely started."

"No prob; I got your notebooks and other bookish necessities in the back seat," he said, jabbing a finger in the general direction. "Speaking of which..." He reached behind him for one of her notebooks - watching for an opening to join oncoming traffic all the while. Audrey grabbed his arm and inhaled sharply as he took a wide swing into the street.

"Geez Raph, do you even know how to _drive?!_" she exclaimed. "I can bet you don't have a driver's license. What if you get caught? And I'm sure you don't know how to get to Connecticut. You know what? Maybe you'd better pull over and let me drive."

Raphael threw his hat into the backseat, which had been covering a pair of sunglasses he'd perched on top of his head. These he slid down to his nose and winked at his accomplice. "Relax. I got it covered." He let his left arm hang out of the window with his usual sense of aloofness. Audrey felt her heart jam into her throat and leaned back into the backseat for the hat.

"Are you out of your mind? You're in a convertible; you may be driving, but people can still see you," she yelled out, horrified. Then, in a moment of sheer amusement, she tugged the hat back over his head. "Besides, do you want to get sunburn on that bald little head of yours?"

If he could have blushed, now would have been the time. He felt his face flush with warmth and start to itch. Attempting to ignore it, he took a glance at the notebook he'd grabbed.

"Master Splinter taught us a crapload of Japanese while we were growing up. Of course, when we were little, it wasn't intentional...but once we were older, he figured it would be a useful thing for us to know. You know, 'cause the Foot was Japanese, and they weren't always smart enough to use code. So I want to help you learn a phrase or two for when you kids go over there."

"If you all know the language, won't Leonardo's knowledge be enough to cover my butt if I need it?"

"Shut the hell up. Anyway, what if you - "

"Ooh, turn here, we want to get on the bridge here," she pointed out suddenly. He was so busy playing I Know Better Than You that he nearly missed the turn he needed; he swerved and prayed that no one would hit him. Audrey only released her breath when she was sure they were on their way to crossing the bridge.

"As I was saying," he said nonchalantly, smoothing out a crease in his armband. It was almost comical, and Audrey giggled. "What if you get lost in the marketplace and need to know how to get home?"

"The marketplace? Where do you think we're going, southeast India?" she teased. If she had been any of his brothers, he wouldn't have thought twice about smacking her, and hard. As it was, she looked like a sweet little flower, curled up comfortably with her feet on the edge of her seat and her flowing skirt wrapped around her like a blanket.

He opted to give her a dirty look and be done with it. "So, what've we got here," he mused, looking at the scribblings sprawled haphazardly across the page. "_'Pro-drop...pronoun usage...relating to status_'...this is crap! How are you gonna learn Japanese by sentence structure and proper grammatical wording? Here, try this: _kuso yaro_."

Audrey repeated the two words slowly and deliberately, carefully wrapping her lips around each vowel with as much of an accent as she could muster. Raphael snorted.

"What? Did I say it wrong?" she asked with genuine concern. He shook his head, a mischievous smirk crossing his face.

"No, no you said it right."

Now she knew something was wrong. She narrowed her eyes and folded her arms crossly. "What did I just say?" He was grinning so broadly that he was afraid to look at her, fearful he would burst into laughter before he was able to speak.

"Oh, something along the lines of 'you little shit' or 'fuck you'. It's a pretty foul thing to say. I can't believe you actually said it! You gotta be more careful, Audrey, or you're gonna get into a lot of trouble." He injected as much earnesty as he could into what he was saying, which only earned him a hard punch in the arm. He howled - who knew she could put so much force behind a punch! So much for being a pretty little flower.

"Ah! Christ, Donatello must be working you pretty hard," he moaned, rubbing his arm sorely. She grinned with victory.

"_You're_ the little shit, Raphael. And anyway, Donnie hasn't trained with me for ages; it's all been with you. Karma's a bitch."

"Ooh, you want to learn how to say _that_ in Japanese? Father used that one a lot."

"At the moment, I'd just like you to turn onto that highway there and drive. We'll have loads of time for you to teach me dirty words once we get there."


	13. We're dancing in the wind

"Oh my god it's _beautiful!_"

Audrey almost stumbled right onto her face in her race to get out of the car. Raphael only stood by the car, a knowing smile on his trouble-making face, while she ran up the crumbling steps of the old cottage he'd just pulled up to. When he'd "accidentally" taken a "wrong turn" into a village just shy of Mystic, she was ready to smack him in the head with his sai. Then that knowing grin sprawled across his face, and she became wary of his intentions. He seemed to know where he was going for someone who had never been to Connecticut before. He slid smoothly from the paved road to an old dirt side road. The dirt road became a long dirt driveway, and before long, they were parked behind a small cottage with the most expansive backyard she had ever seen.

"You like?" he asked casually, twirling her car keys between his fingers. She squealed with glee from inside the doorway, which was tucked between two pillars whose paint was chipping.

"I freaking _love_ it! How on earth did you get your hands on such a - a beautiful piece of property?" she breathed, spinning in a small circle with her arms extended. "That yard has _got_ to be an acre wide, and it's so open and so hidden at the same time...and look, there's a tiny little pond over there! How _cute!_ And a little forest area over there! _Raph!_"

She bounded back from the steps and threw her arms around his shoulders so hard he almost fell over backwards. He laughed, thrilled that she was so pleased.

"Well, you know, April and Casey always did have some great connections," he explained, snaking his hand around her waist as he walked with her back inside. "It's not the greatest, it could certainly use some work. They helped me and the guys get our hands on it years ago. We figured it would be a great place to train without being seen. And if something happened, we could always retreat here. Kind of like that farmhouse in that horrible live-action movie they made about us. Except for the part where Splinter gets kidnapped. And the part where it belongs to April. Nope, this place is totally ours."

Audrey snorted at the elusion to the movie. "You guys are so cinematic," she observed. She ran the very tips of her fingers along the cracks in the pillars. "How did you ever get the kind of money to own something like this, anyway?"

"You'd be surprised what geeks would pay to see people in authentic-looking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costumes."

"Ah, there's nothing authentic about your costumes." Audrey crossed her arms and took a better look at her companion. Her eyes wandered from the top of his head to the bottom of his toes, trying to remember what she'd seen in the cartoons as a child.

"For one thing, your bandana is too long," she pointed out, grasping it in her hand without tugging on it. "Come on, how're you supposed to fight bad guys with this? It would totally get in your way! And what if it got snagged on something? Tsk tsk, very impractical. Plus, you're too tall, your feet are too big, and this belt is _nothing_ like the animated series. Where's the big fat medal with the big fat 'R' on it?"

"Probably stuck somewhere up your big fat - hey!"

She'd decided to punch him hard in the arm mid-muttering.

The evening was crisp and cool, a perfect spring night for the backwater town. Audrey pulled her shawl - one of many articles of clothing she'd found that had once belonged to her cousin - more closely to her body and wandered onto the back porch. It had been ages since she'd seen a sky so full of stars that it made her dizzy just to look at it. She leaned against one of the pillars and sighed with contentment. A creak of the floorboards behind her told her that Raphael wasn't too far off.

"You know what's amazing?" She didn't turn around when she addressed him, fully aware that he was right behind her, so she didn't see the steaming mugs of decaf coffee he carried with him, one in each hand.

"What's that?" he responded. He nudged one of the mugs into her hand, which she readily accepted. Without taking a sip, she finished her thought, gesturing up at the thick white streak of stars known as the Milky Way.

"That. Right there. Do you know what that is?" she asked, brushing the sky with the palm of her hand. He followed her hand with his eyes.

"The Milky Way?"

"That's our galaxy. Our sun is just one among billions and trillions and gajillions of other suns, other stars, within it. That there is just one arm of it. And there's billions and trillions and gajillions of galaxies in our known universe. Just our _known_ universe! We, all six and a half billion of us, are just a tiny speck of dust in the huge expanse of space. And it's constantly expanding and growing! It all just feels so surreal, doesn't it?"

"Sure makes ya feel tiny and insignificant." He squatted down on the porch steps, trying to make himself comfortable amidst the splintering wood and cracking paint. More than anything though, he looked awkward and impossibly large. Even his fingers curled around his mug - one of the most complacent gestures a person could make - only seemed unnatural. Nonetheless, Audrey felt a sudden warmth flood her veins. She smiled sweetly at her companion and took a seat next to him.

"Well, I don't know if it makes _me_ feel insignificant, but it certainly takes away any sense of urgency from my problems. Oh Raph, it's such a beautiful universe out there." She gave a sigh of pleasure that was really more of a purr and leaned her head thoughtlessly against his shoulder.

Any other time he would have been thrilled for the sensation. As it was, her description of the wide space around them uprooted a fear that he'd buried deep inside himself more times than he could count. Distracted, he swirled the coffee around the cup.

"Do you ever think that, ya know, maybe...we were all just...I don't know, like - mistakes?"

"Mistakes? What do you mean?" she asked innocently.

"You ever think that...we were never actually _supposed_ to be here? That we're just here because somebody fucked up?"

Well-aware of the gravity of the situation, yet still amused, she giggled quietly. "There's this great book out there, Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, and in it there's this race of people that believe that the world was created when God sneezed. Same thing?"

Raphael cracked a smile in spite of himself. "Audrey, seriously. I mean, with humans, it's like - like you said, we're just a tiny speck of dust out of a bajillion other specks of dust. Out of all the other planets in the universe, why did life start _here_ of all places? Don't you think it could've been nothing more than just a huge mistake?"

"Like some sort of cosmic accident?" She pondered this briefly; no more than ten seconds could have passed. "No, but see, that's the beauty of it! Life could have started anywhere, but it started _here._ Okay, so we might have been one great big 'oops'. So what if we're little more than snot right out of God's nose? We've been given this amazing chance to live, and I don't call that a fuck-up. I call it _luck_."

"Yeah. Right. Luck."

It suddenly dawned on her what was troubling him, and she cozied up more closely to him. Her small presence was oddly soothing to him. When she shivered, he seized the opportunity to hug her close. "Look, I can't imagine that being a half-turtle half-human ninja is easy. I can't even imagine _being_ any of those things. All I know is, you've got a pretty kickass gift. I mean, try to imagine life if you guys hadn't come across that mutagen. You'd be somebody's pet, trapped inside a glass bowl with no hope of ever seeing the outside world."

"I already feel like somebody's pet," he murmured bitterly. She squeezed his arm affectionately.

"Well okay, fair argument...but if you weren't partially human, who'd be around to tackle the Foot? How would you guys ever know what pizza tasted like? You gotta admit, there's certainly perks to being mostly human."

A devilish smirk crossed his face, and he scratched the back of his head where his bandana was tied. "Yeah, I guess I can think of a few, uh..._improvements_," he said casually. He chugged half of his coffee while he waited for Audrey to catch on, then got to his feet.

"Improvements? What kind of - wait, was that supposed to be sexual?" she asked, puzzled. He only winked and pressed his finger in front of his mouth as if to say "hush". Trying to be smooth about it - but admittedly struggling to keep a straight face - he headed back inside.

Audrey was caught between being appalled and amazed. "Hold on a sec. Exactly how much of you is human?" When she didn't get an answer, she started to laugh uproariously and chased him inside. "Oh my god - _Raphael!_"


	14. We've both learned to compromise

It was four o'clock in the afternoon and Audrey was losing her patience. The sun was finally breaking through after two straight days of rain. The warmth was a welcome change from the drafty chill, but it did nothing for the humidity.

And Audrey had had it.

Dripping with sweat and exhaustion, she threw the bo staff angrily to the ground and reached around for her lower back, moaning with agony. Raphael, who had been practicing with her since the sun rose that morning, didn't anticipate her abrupt move and nearly sliced her throat with a sai. He grunted with annoyance, barely scraping her skin.

"You know what, Raph? Fuck it," she groaned, leaning as far back as she could without tumbling over. "Just fuck it. I'm tired, I'm sore as hell, and anyway, Leonardo is going with me to Japan. How much trouble can I possibly get in?"

"Hey, I've gotten in serious trouble before, life-threatening trouble, and I was with three well-trained ninjas," he snapped, panting heavily from the force of his previous interrupted blow. He pointed at her with his weapon for emphasis. "If a member of the Foot sneaks up behind you and presses a blade against your jugular, Leo ain't gonna be able to do shit for ya."

"_Stop yelling at me!_" she cried so loudly that her chest heaved with emotion. "You keep yelling at me and pushing me and demanding all kinds of unreasonable things of me and you know what? I'm _tired_ of it! I'm not training to be a ninja assassin here." She threw her hands wildly into the air. "All I want to do is go to Japan for a couple weeks and recover some stupid useless artifacts. It's not even like the Foot _exists_ anymore! It's just a bunch of gang-bangers fighting each other. They're just gonna kill themselves off anyway."

"_Gang-bangers?_ What exactly do you think you're in for here?" He pounded his fist into his hand. "We're talking about _ninjas_, Audrey. Masters of darkness and shadows. These guys can take out a small army without ever making a sound. The Foot doesn't just cease to exist. They have a history of taking out old leaders and replacing them with new, more skillfully-trained ones. With the power struggle that we suspect is going on right now, they're probably more dangerous now than ever. There's a huge vacuum over there, and we don't want you to get sucked into it."

"Will you stop with the 'we' nonsense already? _You're_ the one that doesn't want me to go! _You're_ the one that's fighting me every step of the way! _You're_ the one that's training me so hard I can't see straight!" she yelled, pointing her finger so close to his face that he flinched every time she said "you're". "God, why can't you be more like Leonardo? At least _he's_ actually excited for the trip."

There were few ways to get Raphael to see red more than comparing him to his illustrious old brother. Audrey could almost see the fire ignite in his eyes, but couldn't find it in herself to regret it. She pushed her hair, soaked with sweat and humidity and clinging lifelessly to her forehead, away from her eyes. She even put a hand on her hips, over the tank top that seemed to be glued to her body, and stared at him daringly.

"Yeah, well I got news for you sister - it was Leo's idea to start training you," he lied through his teeth. "He's the one that's been pushing _me_ to push you. I wanted to stop, but he kept insisting that you weren't trained enough. He says you're weak, that you're not half the girl April was. April never bitched and moaned when we were training _her_."

She gasped, offended. "Leonardo would never say anything like that."

"Guess there's a lot about our fearless leader you never knew," he said smugly.

"You filthy fucking liar," she spat at him. "He would never compare me to April. He's too dignified and mature for that. Looks more like _you're_ not half the man he _is_."

Flooded with bitter anger, he slid his sai smoothly back into his belt and lifted his hand as though to hit her. That was when he realized that what they were doing was absolutely absurd. She was burning out, and he was running her to the point of over-exhaustion. She almost seemed like a small child, crying because she was being pushed to her limits. Slowly he put down his hand down. It was the first time in a long time that he felt like he had control over his rage.

"You know what?" he said, picking up the staff that she had tossed carelessly into the grass. "This is ridiculous. We're both tired, and your focus is completely shot anyway. Let's go down to the water."

She blinked, uncertain of what had just happened. "Wait - what?"

"Let's go down to the water," he repeated. "You mentioned wanting to go down to the aquarium. We could do that instead if you want. Or if you want to just lay around here and watch T.V, that's fine too. I think you'll be fine for your trip to Kyoto. Come to think of it, there's a big geisha district down there. I have a few more phrases I want to teach you to prepare you for that."

He stuck one end of the staff into the dirt and leaned on it, smiling darkly.

Something struck hard inside Audrey - frustration or delirium, possibly a mixture of the two - and she started to laugh so hard that her stomach hurt. "You better not teach me any more dirty expressions, like 'I have an erection' or anything like that."

Raphael glanced at his fingernails. "I was thinking something more along the lines of 'big penis', but I guess that works too."

"How on earth do you know how to say - _Raphael!_" she squealed. "Totally too much information."

He laughed and shook his head. "So what'll it be? The aquarium, the water, or here?"

"Are you propositioning me?"

Suddenly uncomfortable, he felt the blood rush to his face and he turned away slightly. "Of course not!"

"Good. Because I'm pretty sure bestiality is illegal in Connecticut." Chuckling at her own joke, she walked toward the house, patting him on the shoulder as she went. "A glass of iced tea on the hammock sounds lovely. But first, I'd like to shower. I feel disgusting."

"Yeah well, you _are_ disgusting," he muttered, following behind her. And yet, the breezy way she suggested the idea of sex was oddly appealing. As she walked, he watched the way her hips moved, the way that she put one foot so delicately and lightly in front of the other, and couldn't help but start to count the days until he would finally be human.

Years ago, before the Shredder had come into their lives, he and his brothers had sworn to find the cause of their father's mutation and set him right. Now that he was gone and Raphael alone was offered the opportunity to make this correction a reality, he felt slightly guilty about it. Karmically speaking, what had he done to deserve such a thing? Was it the universe punishing him for constantly threatening to abandon his brothers? Or was it a reward for going to the surface and protecting those that Splinter had always said they should avoid? Was it because he spent so much time on the surface that he narrowly avoided their exposure time and time again?

His head was swimming and he was starting to feel dizzy. He grabbed a pillar for support, shook his head, and tried to focus his thoughts solely on Audrey.

Which didn't make things any easier in the least.


	15. Don't disguise your emptiness

The days slid smoothly away and before she knew it, Audrey was in Osaka, Japan after an excruciatingly long plane flight. After she had adjusted to the everyday hustle and bustle of the busy commercial district, she set out immediately to find the companion she had sent ahead before her. She didn't have much difficult in getting around with the limited language she spoke, as the American culture had been vigorously embraced and most of the locals spoken broken (yet understandable) English. Panic seized her when she she first saw the sheer volume of people that made up the lifeblood of Osaka. As a native of a small Connecticut town, New York City had taken years of acclimation. Osaka was nothing short of terrifying.

She decided then and there to do everything in her power to avoid Tokyo.

By poor communication in places she'd thought Leonardo might visit (an imitation of an American pizza parlor, an antique weapons dealer, and a crowded travel agency), she was able to ascertain his whereabouts with surprising ease. She learned that he had dressed himself in a fashion similar to the way that Splinter had dressed, though she imagined the dark-colored robes looked awkward in contrast to the modern Japanese style of dress. He'd also disguised his head with a heavy hood that revealed only a couple of brown pinpricks where his eyes should be. As far as she could tell, he'd hidden himself well, bizarre though he may have appeared.

After hours of searching and travel she found him, sitting in the lotus position in the faraway hills of rural Kyoto. He sat before a large statue of the Buddha that three times his size, his eyes closed and his breathing slow and regulated. He had removed all of the clothing that covered him, leaving it to lie strewn about him. Even his katanas, the swords he never allowed to leave his side, were abandoned far beyond reach. She plopped herself cross-legged next to him and touched his shoulder gently. She expected him to jump, but he barely moved.

"Leo? Hey, it's me," she said, her voice as soft as the warm summer breeze. He exhaled deeply.

"Hey."

All right, so this was awkward. She shifted uncomfortably. "How was your trip?" she asked congenially, stretching her legs out to the side.

"Calm. Quiet."

"Did anyone see you?"

"Not at all."

"Great. Okay. When did you get here?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

"Oh really? Where did you spend the night?"

"Right here?"

"Oh, Leo...and no one saw you?"

"No, no one."

"How are you feeling, by the way?"

"Well enough I suppose."

Um. Okay then. She cleared her throat and looked around her, grasping desperately for anything with which to make conversation. Anything at all. She noticed a small stick of incense that was burning, stuck between the fingers of the Buddha. It almost looked like a cigarette, which was inappropriate but amused her all the same.

"Incense smells good. Dragon's Blood?"

"Sandalwood." One eye opened and peered over at her curiously. "What's Dragon's Blood?"

Relieved at the breakthrough, she smiled brightly. "Another kind of incense. It's a little muskier than sandalwood, now that I think of it. I use it in spells requiring strength and protection."

"Gotcha."

A couple more breaths and Leonardo growled, irritated. "Ugh, this just isn't working!" Both eyes flew open and he flung his arms to the wide blue sky.

"Why? What are you trying to do?" she asked, suddenly fearful of his agitated state.

He sighed deeply, as though fully aware that the outcome he'd expected had been foolish. "On my way up here, I stopped at a village at the bottom of the hill. There was an old man selling candles and herbs and oils and things. I asked him if he knew which scent was - was the best for communicating with...with the dead. This was what he gave me."

"Oh honey, it's just a stick dipped in sweet-smelling oil. What did you think was going to happen?" she asked, putting her hand sympathetically on his knee. He didn't make a move to remove it. He only rolled his eyes at himself and rubbed the back of his neck uneasily.

"I know it sounds silly, I mean - I didn't expect ghosts to come wafting out of an old abandoned Buddhist statue. I remember that this was Master Splinter's favorite scent. He used to burn it all the time in his study. And I just thought that...maybe, you know, he'd smell it from where he was, and - gah, I don't know. It all sounds so ridiculous when I say it out loud."

Upset and hurt and consumed by a hundred different kinds of depression, he got to his feet and tugged the incense stick out of the statue, throwing it bitterly to the ground. Audrey gasped, sure that it was going to ignite the ground at their feet, but it only smoked for a few seconds and then blew itself out.

"Wait a second," he mused, his fingertips wrapping themselves around something invisible at his side. "You do magic...I bet you know how to make contact with the spirit world."

Her eyes widened as he turned slowly toward her, pivoting only the upper half of his body. "No, no, I know what you're thinking," she said quickly, hurrying to her feet as well and making a huge "no go" gesture with her arms. "Absolutely not. I can't do that."

He turned the rest of his body toward her. His eyes, usually so warm and protective, looked like the sad and innocent eyes of a child. He looked broken somehow as he pleaded with her, praying as though his life depended on it. "Please Audrey, please...there's so much that's been left unsaid...I don't think you understand." Her heart ached for him but she stood her ground, as much as it pained her.

"No, I don't think _you_ understand. Those that have passed have moved on to so many other things. Some have reincarnated into other bodies, some have gone to their respective heavens and hells, and some just wander the world, looking out for those who are still alive. You can't just snap your fingers and expect them to be at your every beck and call. It's like showing up at a stranger's house uninvited. It's rude and unnatural and I won't do it. Besides, I'm sure your father knows that you love him, without you having to tell him." He crossed his arms as though feeling a sudden chill.

"It's not my father I'm worried about knowing."

The way that he averted his eyes from hers when he spoke made her suspicious. She leaned over to try to get a better look into his eyes, but he was busy staring at a blade of grass. "Well, who else would you want me to try to conta - " Realization struck her midsentence and she clapped her hand heavily over her mouth.

Karai. Of course. She was the only other person Leonardo had been attached to and lost unexpectedly. The emotions between the two of them had been a bone of contention with the brothers ever since they met and Audrey knew it. But it wasn't her place to judge; what could she possibly say to him? It took her a moment to recover, an awkwardly silent moment during which she blinked and he kicked at small stones in the dirt.

She paused, trying to find the right words, and took a deep breath. "Come with me. I want to show you something."


	16. Holding on to what is gone won't heal it

Leonardo gazed up at the tremendous structure before him in quiet awe. "What is it?" he whispered, running the soft pads of his fingers along the worn wood. It was clear that, although he didn't understand what he was looking at, he was well aware of its significance. She smiled knowingly a few steps behind him.

"It's an old Shinto shrine," she explained as he moved softly, deliberately, around the gate. He looked up at the crossbeams over his head and nearly tripped on himself. "This one's been here for hundreds of years. Usually they belong to local villages or clans, so when I accidentally stumbled on it on my way to see you, I was sure it belonged to them. But the villagers had never even heard of it. Can you see why?"

He circled the gate twice before he came across something familiar etched into the red wood. "The Foot," he gasped. "The Foot built this. Look, it's their symbol, right here." His head craned to look into the crossbeams, as though expecting a Foot ninja to drop on top of them at any moment. She only nodded.

"Right. And this village - the one right outside of Kyoto, the same one where you bought that incense - this was Splinter's old home. _Mizuo_, they call it."

Leonardo's heart seemed to break right in front of her. He gripped one of the beams supporting the gate as a support for himself. "_Mizuo_," he repeated. "That sounds so familiar. I'm certain he's mentioned it more than once, and I just never paid attention."

His legs gave out as she watched, and he slid right down alongside the structure. "Audrey," he croaked, "you gotta get me out of here. I can't even get up right now. Please, give me your hand and take me out of here. Kyoto, Osaka, Tokyo - I don't care where we go. Just - I want to leave. Now."

"I'm afraid I can't do that." She lowered herself to his level, crouching on her knees. "You need this, Leo. I'm well aware of how painful this experience is going to be, but just trust me. You do trust me, don't you?" He stared at her for a moment or two before he realized that her eyes were dead-set and resolute. She wasn't going to change her mind. With that, he gave a watery sigh and nodded his head.

"Yeah. Yeah, I trust you."

"Okay then." She got back up and pulled a bundle of dried leaves - sage, he wondered? - out of the bag that was slung over her shoulder. She lit it with a match (where did they come from?) and set it on the ground, in the sand directly beneath the giant crossbeam overhead. There she knew it wouldn't catch fire and set the entire hillside ablaze. It didn't smell anything like the white sage Leo was accustomed to. He assumed it was some other herb; after all, Audrey was the practicing witch. She knew what she was doing, and he felt safe with her.

"Do you know what the shinto religion is all about?" she asked him, stepping slowly away from the temple space she'd just created.

He strained to remember the teachings of his sensei. "Sort of. It's like, all about nature, right? Kinda like your Wicca. Except all different things in nature are gods."

"Exactly. Well, they call them _kami_, but you've got the right idea. The kami are all holy in their own right. There's actually a shrine for the particular kami of this area hanging right above your head. And since we're on a shoreline and the gate seems to be leading into the ocean there, I'm guessing it's some sort of water deity. But anyway. What I want you to do is sit here and meditate - just meditate, the way your father showed you - and focus on the area around you. Remember that you're in the kami's territory now; listen to them, whatever they tell you. I'm going to go into the village and let you take this journey in peace. You have a lot to learn. Just be still and allow yourself to be taught."

What she was saying made absolutely no sense to him, but seemed to make perfect sense to her. He looked at her quizzically, but she only kissed his cheek softly and headed back up the rocky beach.

Well then.

He settled himself into his favorite lotus position, about a foot or so in front of the shrine and the smoldering herbs. They smelled distantly of some of the vagrants he used to tackle with Raphael on nights when the two were spatting and Splinter sent them out of the sewer. But no, marijuana was as illegal here as it was back home, and Audrey wouldn't be caught dead with it anyway. So what could it be? Once he'd gotten past the abrupt stench, it had a strange sweetness to it. Pleasurable. Enjoyable. He inhaled deeply and took a moment to admire his surroundings.

Behind him was the rocky hillside that hid the village of Mizuo. Where he was sitting was like a small, secluded, forgotten nook at world's end. Before him towered the shrine and the wide Pacific Ocean. Directly across that ocean, he knew, was the country in which he'd been born. Ah, what a perfect tie, being between Splinter's birthplace and his own. He smiled at the thought.

And Karai. She too had been born not too far from Kyoto. She'd made mention of the geisha district there more times than he could count. Her sister had been raised in that world, though she'd left it suddenly at Karai's request. Still, she had dozens of stories about it and the things they'd learned there. Literature, some dance, elegance, even smatterings of magic as it related to ancient Japanese culture. It was not at all the brothel that the rest of the world assumed it was, and Leonardo had ached to be able to reveal it to his brothers. Of course, that meant telling them that he met with Karai more times than they were aware of, and he wasn't ready to reveal that.

As if knowing that he was thinking of her, her figure appeared slowly on the top of the water. It appeared like dust particles being blown across the ocean in just the right order. One minute she was walking towards him from the distance and he could only see the vague outline of her; the next, she was standing ankle-deep in the water looking right him. She was clothed in a simple white robe with a red Japanese symbol on it. The symbol for grace. He blinked rapidly, sure that he was seeing things.

"Leonardo." She spoke, and her voice sounded strange, distorted. Similar to the way it would have sounded had he been underwater. He looked around him, alarmed. Audrey had been gone for ages - how long at it been? Time was distorted as well. Everything other than the gate and the ocean had fallen away, quite literally. He was sitting in a void. Theoretically, there was nothing beneath him to support him, so he should be falling through space. But he wasn't, and this seemed to make perfect sense to him. It felt natural to sit here, drifting away without moving. Wait. That didn't make sense. But it did. Ah, it all did.

"Leo, what are you doing here?" she asked, tilting her head gently to the side. She was curious but not angry. He tried to get up to get closer to her, but his muscles weren't working. He was glued into this position. The best he could do was to reach his arms out for her.

"I came here because I was told that I'm dying. Is that true? Am I really dying? Do you know?"

"No, you can't be dying. If your soul were slipping away from you like that, I would know. But you are very sick. What's happened to you, Leo? You've always been so strong. Stronger than I," she admitted, reaching down to slip her hands into his. They felt as warm as they did when she was alive. He could almost feel the pulse still running through her. What strange magic was this?

"I'm not strong," he said, choking back a sob as he spoke. "I'm not even close. Maybe I was once, but the world is changing, and I'm not ready for it."

"Well that's silly. Of course you are." A second figure appeared behind her and put a hand tenderly on her shoulder. Master Splinter. He too was dressed as she was, but his robe had a different symbol on it. His was the symbol of honor. Honor and grace. It made far more sense than this vision.

Leonardo almost lost what little composure he'd had at the sight of him. "Father!" he cried, clawing desperately into the air, trying to grab hold of the figure in the water. He must have looked so childish sitting there, grasping as though begging to be picked up and held.

But Splinter obliged. He took a few steps forward and bent down with both arms to lift his son underneath the shoulders. Leo was on his feet now, but he was hardly steady. He teetered uncertainly toward the water and tripped on his own foot. Karai laughed gently and caught him. Though he knew she was a ghost, a spirit, an echo of her former existence, her body still felt warm and solid and smelled so deliciously of cherry blossoms. He almost cried with the relief of it all.

"You are no longer a child, Leonardo," Splinter said, his hands folded authoritatively in front of him. "You do not need me to approve every move you make. I feel that I have taught you well, and I trust that your decisions will be fair and true to your heart."

"But I'm not ready to be a leader," he protested. He felt strong enough to stand on his own two feet now, but pretended not to in order to excuse the fact that he was still leaning heavily on Karai.

"Of course you are. You just don't _believe_ that you are. You must trust yourself, my son. And trust in your brothers. Just because I am gone, it does not mean that you are all alone in the world. Donatello is an excellent resource, and Michelangelo can show you how to look into your heart to find the right answer. And Raphael is more than willing to train physically with you into all hours of the night. Allow yourself to lean on them as much as they lean on you. Do not fall apart simply because I cannot be with you. Even without me, you are still _brothers_, and the love between you all can get you through this. Raphael wants so badly to give you guidance, but you turn away from him, and that pains him. I can see it."

Leonardo was silent as his father spoke, but a nagging disagreement bubbled to the surface. "What sort of guidance could that ill-tempered show-off possibly give me?" he muttered bitterly.

Splinter lifted his eyebrows and Leo immediately regretted his mutterings. "By not giving him the opportunity to help you, you are being as stubborn and prideful as he is. His heart is in the right place, and he can teach you much about yourself. Listen to him. Listen to all of them."

The water began to drift away from his feet and the ground began to reappear. He felt Karai's figure grow cold and dissipate beneath him. He grasped at her, too frightened to let her go just yet. "No - no, don't go, I'm not done - " he choked, suddenly mindful of the hot tears that had been streaming down his face. Splinter wrapped him in a gentle embrace.

"I love you. I love all of you. I am never far away," he said, his voice falling into the distance. Leonardo held him close, but no matter how tightly he held on, reality was sinking in and his father was leaving him.

"Wait - Karai - " Leo said suddenly. He'd just realized that, with all that had transpired between himself and his father, he hadn't said the one thing he'd burned to say for so many years.

"It's all right, my love. I already know. I always have." Her voice sounded like a mix between birds singing and the crashing of the ocean waves. Before long, he was standing knee-deep in the water, the shrine back behind him and enough memories in his head to last him a lifetime. He felt dizzy and faint; his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he toppled backward into the water.


	17. It's treason just to let it be

A/N: Finally, some plot! I had a couple glasses of wine before I wrote this, so if you see anything misspelled or unclear, please feel free to let me know.

"It was amazing!" Leonardo exclaimed excitedly, leaping onto the hotel bed with both feet. "I totally saw Master Splinter. And Karai! They looked like they were getting along so well. Like any differences they had in this life were gone in the next. He told me some stuff about leaning on my brothers and blah blah blah...she didn't say much, but she didn't have to. I got the message. They didn't stay long either. Hey - what was in that stuff you were burning, anyway?"

She grinned. "That, my dear, is for me to know and you to never ever find out." She continued to type away at the computer in her lap without once making eye contact. She sat on the other bed next to him with her legs stretched out in front of her and her ankles comfortably crossed. With the Japanese sun sinking below the hills just outside the window, and the warm breeze that drifted softly past her face, she was possibly the most content she had been in a long time. Leonardo pouted, falling into an Indian-style position of sitting. Audrey could swear the vision had shaved ten years off him - but at least he was better company now.

He took an empty gum wrapper off the dresser, rolled it into a ball, and sling-shot it at her computer with a rubber band. At the realization that he'd missed it by a mile and his makeshift weapon had actually landed in the garbage can, he erupted into a fit of giggles. She rolled her eyes and typed "When are you coming here?" into an instant message box on her laptop.

A reply message blinked onto the screen. "a wk from yesterday. y? u ok?"

"Yeah, we're fine. Just could use a little human company, ya know?"

"ha ha i no right? raphs been givin me a headache over here. cant get him 2 sit still 4 shit, lolz. btw, he n don rly like those margarritas u made them. they keep sendin me out 4 tequila when i come over. its ok tho, cuz theyre rly funny when theyre drunk!!!!!"

It took her a minute to decipher Avery's hip internet lingo, but once she did she smiled. The time that she had spent with Raphael in the country house made her think on him with a new kind of fondness. Meanwhile, Leonardo groaned impatiently.

"I'm bored. Think I'll go for a walk," he said, hopping off the bed and reaching for the closet. There he dressed himself in a dark green poncho with an elusive hood and plain slacks. He also removed his mask, a first in front of Audrey. Aside from looking homeless, he mostly just looked naked. When she caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye, she did a double-take.

"Oh my god," she gasped, grasping her heart with relief, "for a second there I was sure you were naked."

He lifted a questioning eyebrow at her as he slipped his bandana over the bedpost. "Not likely. Even I stripped down, you wouldn't see anything under my shell – unless, you know, you – "

It was at the word "unless" that she clapped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. "Yes, okay, that's enough," she squeaked with embarrassment, preferring her imagination to anything he could have to say. He paused at the sight of her, her knees pulled up to her chest and her eyes peeking open ever so slightly. She looked so childlike, so innocent, and he shook his head in amusement.

"Well, I can see why you charm Raph so easily," he said, slipping his swords noiselessly beneath the poncho. "You two are polar opposites." After tugging the hood over his head so as to conceal his face, he repeated his desire to go out and added, "I'm gonna wander around downtown for a while. Can I get you anything while I'm there?"

She hesitantly opened her eyes and, when she was sure it was safe, lowered her hands from her ears. "No thank you," she replied. She had, of course, heard every word. A person's hand did little good to muffle sound. The comment about his brother made her wonder. Charm? What an interesting choice of words. She had thought of herself as many things over the years, but "charming" was certainly never one of them. And Raphael? He was far from the type that could be considered easily charmed. Polar opposites? Well, yes, that much was true, and in so many ways. But was that really so bad?

She chose to pretend that she hadn't heard it at all.

Leonardo nodded curtly and turned on his heels for the door. There was still a significant amount of bounce to his step. "Hey, just be safe out there, okay?" Audrey's voice followed him out of the door. Before closing it behind him, he answered with,

"Of course. I'm a ninja for crying out loud. I think I can take care of myself."

"I'm not worried about you getting mugged or anything; I just don't want you to be seen. I'm really not in the mood to explain you to the authorities."

He rolled his eyes and pulled the door tightly closed.

It was late evening now; Leonardo had lost track of the time. The stars were out now, a handful of them gleaming overhead despite the bright lights of the city. Kyoto, he was learning, resembled Manhattan in that it never seemed to sleep. All sorts of businesses displayed "Open 24 Hours" proudly in their windows, from bars to restaurants to even an old store that called itself a "Spiritual Devotion Shop". It was, however, barely half the size of his native turf.

He had been idly wandering the streets for some time now, but nothing tickled his fancy enough to pull him in. He was in the middle of a heavy debate with himself to enter a smoky diner when a small crowd of natives passed him, one pushing him roughly but giving no sign that he was noticed. He heard one girl in the crowd – a few years older than he, if that – speaking soft Japanese to the young man beside her. It was a gentle dialect that was almost musical to the ear.

"Here. I want to go in here," she said, pointing to the devotion shop just ahead of them. Leonardo pressed his back against the brick wall, lowered his head to further conceal himself, and turned to get a better look. There were five or six of them; they kept moving and making themselves difficult to track. Only the one was a girl. The others were male, ranging in age from teenage to perhaps mid-40s. All of them were handsome in their own right.

And the girl. He had to cover his mouth with his hand so as to hide the noise he made. She looked as though she could have been Karai's twin. Her hair was long, though, as Karai's had never been – a silky black that hung in a clean braid down her back. Her frame was small and slender. She was likely a head or so shorter than the Clan leader, come to think of it. But she was beautiful. When she turned to speak to one of her male escorts, he caught a glimpse of her eyes, and it was all he could do not to fall prey to her charms. She had lovely blue eyes, though they seemed clouded with gray. The blue-gray of the sky before a storm, maybe. He had never before seen a woman with such eyes.

He shook his head, trying to rattle her out of his head. What was he thinking? How could the sight of a perfect stranger weaken him so much, especially when the memory of Karai was so heavy on his mind? As soon as the troupe headed into the shop, it was as though a spell had been lifted and he could once again think clearly. He blinked a couple of times to be sure he was safe, and then walked swiftly to the door of the shop. There he repeated his action of leaning against the wall with his head to the ground. He pretended to be waiting for someone while he strained to listen to the conversation going on inside. Something struck him as odd with this group, and he was determined to find out what.

"Here's the hematite and incense you were looking for," drifted a male voice.

"Oh, Hitomi, look – black opal!" sighed another voice. "It's crystal clear, a beautiful consistency."

"Black opal? Where?" the one called Hitomi hissed. There was a pause, during which Leonardo suspected she was inspecting the stone. "Yes, it's perfect. Good eye, Kioshi."

Ah, so she was a practitioner of magic, just like Audrey. He made a mental note to remember select bits of what he had heard: Hitomi, hematite, black opal. Hopefully Audrey could explain the usage of these things. Then again, it was probably harmless spell work conducted by a young girl trying to woo a lover.

Not that this particular young girl needed assistance in wooing; he had been won over at just the sight of her.

There was more hushed talk that he could scarcely make out – he distinctly heard the word tsuki, which according to his lessons in Japanese meant "moon" and was therefore insignificant – and a long extended silence. He wasn't sure whether the group had left via another exit or were talking in voices so quiet that they couldn't reach his ears. He strained to listen harder, not realizing that his body was leaning in towards the door. Just before he toppled over and made a terrific crash, he made a soft gasping noise and caught himself, getting back to his feet. He turned to be sure no one had seen him –

- and was immediately face-to-face with one of the men from the crowd.

"Can I help you?" the man grunted. He seemed to be the eldest of all of them, his years and experience clearly visible through the scars on his face and hands. Leonardo realized that he had been looking directly into the eyes of the stranger and quickly lowered his head again, but it was too late. He had caught the man's attention.

"Not at all, unless you've seen the friend I've been waiting for," he said coolly. His heart was thumping a thousand miles a minute, but he summoned up all of his ninjitsu training and was able to keep calm and rational. "Have you seen her perchance? She's about so big," he gestured Audrey's height, "American, thick red hair and blue eyes?"

The man snorted. "Not likely. American girls don't spend much time here in the hanamachi."

The geisha district? How on earth had he wandered this far from the hotel? He swallowed hard. No wonder Hitomi had caught his eye – she was trained to. Before he could think of a response, the man had pulled the hood clean off his head. All his training seemed to fail him in that one instant. The man stepped away slowly, horrified.

"What are you?" he whispered. Leonardo recovered quickly, narrowing his eyes to appear threatening.

"The product of black magic gone horribly, horribly wrong." With each step he took toward the man, his attacker stepped back. He took each step slowly, deliberately, accentuating every word.

"This," he continued, pointing to his face, "is what happens when you mess around with things that you don't understand. All things come back to you threefold my friend, and you'd better take care not to let this happen to you." He silently thanked Audrey for teaching him the bare essentials of Wicca, enough to get this point across. The man made a short gurgling noise in the back of his throat and returned swiftly and wordlessly to his companions. Leonardo turned to be sure the attacker was gone and he was safe, and lifted the hood back over his head as he walked past the shop door. He couldn't wait to get back to Audrey and pursue the answers to his now-burning questions.

Meanwhile, Hitomi looked out of the shop window just in time to catch a quick look at Leonardo's face. She turned to the older man and posed her own burning questions.


	18. If you'd stop acting tough

(Yet another author's note! In case you haven't noticed, I've changed all of the chapter titles into song lyrics. All of the lyrics are from one band. Ten points to the person who can guess the name of the band. Yee haw.)

The room was dark and quiet and had been for the last two hours. Some country rock music was playing softly on the CD player in the background. Donatello was hard at work in front of his computer, leaning forward and intently focused. This just wasn't working. He was going to have to start all over again. Aggravated at the thought, he continued to type away, determined to make it work. Damn it, why wouldn't it –

"Whatcha doin'?" He jumped when Raphael snuck up behind him and broke his concentration. Turning his attention back to the real world, he pushed his office chair away from the desk and leaned his head backward.

"Ugh," he groaned simply, rubbing his tired eyes. "I design web sites for small businesses, remember? It's sort of a freelance job. And it's driving me crazy. Coding and programming is one thing, but I don't think I have a head for design."

"So why don't you get Michelangelo to help you? He's pretty good with all that artsy-fartsy stuff. He knows all about aesthetic crap."

Donatello sighed with exhaustion and frustration. He wheeled the chair around and looked up at his slightly older brother. "Don't you have anything better to do?"

The truth was, he really didn't. Avery had left for Japan a week ago, and without his new human sidekick, Raphael was left on pins and needles waiting for Audrey's return. Sometimes Don wondered at his fondness for human beings. The relationship he'd developed with Avery had uncanny similarities to the one he'd had with Casey, save for Avery's puppy-dog, sidekick attitude. History, he knew, had a funny way of repeating itself, and he hoped that Audrey and Avery weren't going to become the new April and Casey. Casey had been a bad enough influence as it was.

"Not really. And hey, you better be nice to me – these next two days are the last ones you have to spend with me," Raphael said, to which Donatello only rolled his eyes.

"Oh please. Like we can't come visit you on the weekends."

"Yeah? How're ya gonna get there? None of you have a car, and I'm taking my Nightrider bike with me." Raphael crossed his arms and smirked, sure that he had made his point well. Donatello stirred with interest.

"How did you get a – wait." He squinted skeptically. "You don't have a motorcycle. And it's Nightwatcher, not rider. Dumbass, you can't even get your own name right."

Ordinarily, Donatello was far more forgiving, but it was getting late and his patience was wearing thin. He prayed for Audrey and Leonardo to come walking in the door any minute now. Raphael growled and spun Donatello's chair around hard, almost making him fall out of it.

"Whatever," he said dismissively, leaving his brother's lab/computer room and meandering in the general direction of Michelangelo's second-floor bedroom. On his way, though, he had to pass the dojo, and he found that he couldn't resist going inside. After all, Master Splinter had taught them that the best release for built-up tension was a creative outlet, and Raph's outlet was his fighting style. And his crude language. And about a hundred other things. He hung his sai on the wall in favor of a different weapon, one he hadn't worked with in ages – a ninjaken, or ninja sword. Initially it felt heavy and awkward, but after a few of Leonardo's famed katas – the ones that involved deep breaths and heavy meditation – he found himself relaxing into quiet thought.

Audrey. Of course it was her that entered his mind first. That night that they had set up the hammock outside the old Connecticut townhouse. They'd lain together on their backs, him listening in comfortable silence as she chatted away about the sun and moon and stars and the majesty of it all. It was humid and they were attacked by a dozen different kinds of insects, but he was the happiest he could ever remember being. She'd dozed off with her body curled around his and her head resting in the nook between his neck and shoulder. His chest was broad and she'd nuzzled easily into the space. A strong breeze had blown past, causing her to shiver in her sleep. But then he'd put his arm snugly around her, leaving his hand to rest just above her waist, and she'd slept on. Oh god, those curves…the peaceful look on her face…the softness of her milky white skin…it was enough to make his heart break.

Because once he'd become human, he could chase her sure enough. But allowing himself to become human indefinitely meant cutting ties with his brothers indefinitely. They would be limited to hushed meetings beneath the streets and secret visits to the country. Not only was that unfair to his brothers, but it was unfair to him. He could never live out the rest of his life in some backwater town with a population of less than that of a Manhattan apartment building. He needed the bright lights and busy people and high crime rate. His cinematic doppelganger was right – he really couldn't sleep without the sound of the subway running overhead.

So this was the decision it came to. Should he abandon his family for a life out in the open, with a woman whose affection probably belonged to someone else? Or should he turn away from the only person who had ever made him feel human, to live a life of secrecy with his family? Damn it, what kind of choice was that?

He slashed angrily at the air, the figure now in the doorway barely registering in his mind. Then she spoke: "Hey stranger." Audrey's voice dissipated his intense thoughts, making him drop the sword in surprise. She tried to repress her giggle, but a smile and a snort escaped nonetheless. He could see her travel-weary shape in the mirror that he'd been practicing in front of, but he picked up the sword and clumsily turned to face her all the same.

She lifted both of his sai effortlessly from the wall and, after displaying a brief presentation of her own, handed them to him. It seems she had been well-taught. "Better stick with these, love."

"Love". She had just called him "love". He felt the heat rise to his face as he returned the weapons to the wall. "Shut the hell up." This only made her giggled more.

"Oh, fuck you Raph," came an irritated voice from the dining room. "We just got back. Don't start with us now." Leonardo. Of course. Who else? The eldest brother didn't even bother to come into the dojo to defend his argument.

"Oh, brilliant. Home for not even five minutes and you're already cursing at me," Raphael spat back, folding his arms in defiance. "Well fuck you too Leo. God, I can't believe I'm stuck with you for another two days. Maybe I'll leave ahead of time, to hell with all of ya."

Audrey approached him and grabbed his arm loosely, her two fingers pressed gently against his throbbing vein. Most of his bitterness receded at the touch. "Come on, you don't mean that. This is the last bit of quality time you're all going to have together. Don't ruin it by being nasty. Besides, don't mind Leo. It was a long flight and he's just tired."

Raphael gritted his teeth. Her touch may have been soothing, but he was still hurt by Leonardo's off-handed remark. His frame stiffened. "Tired or not, he has no right to come barging in here, saying shit when I didn't even – "

"I saw Master Splinter."

Well. How was he supposed to counter that? His body opted to drop his jaw and discontinue any ability to speak. Michelangelo chose just that moment to come bounding downstairs to greet the travelers. Even Donatello recognized the sounds and came shuffling out of his workroom. They and Audrey, though, were little more than spectators to the discussion.

"You, ah…what?" Raphael asked nervously, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. Leonardo dropped the bags he'd been carrying on the dining room table and came back to the entrance of the dojo, where the rest of his family had gathered. They all looked at him with anticipation.

"I saw Master Splinter," he repeated, leaning wearily against the doorpost. "We stopped in Mizuo during our first couple days there. There was – "

"He's alive?" Michelangelo asked with a mixture of incredulity and excitement. He wormed his way inside the room and stood alongside Raphael. For once, Raphael didn't fight the intrusion. The three younger turtles looked to their leader with visibly lifted hearts. Audrey's, though, plummeted to her stomach.

"Sort of," he explained truthfully. "Audrey performed some of her magic for me, and I was able to get in touch with both Father and Karai."

Raphael's eyelids lowered suspiciously, and Donatello picked at an invisible piece of lint on his armband.

"Their bodies are gone, but their spirits are still hanging around. Audrey showed me that," he continued, pausing to share a private smile with his weeklong companion.

"They're among the few of us who chose to deny any kind of afterlife, so that they could stay and look after those they had left behind," she told the boys reassuringly. "In Buddhist tradition, they'd be considered bodhisattvas. You're all very lucky."

This was heavy news, and none of them knew exactly how to respond. Were they serious? They looked pretty dead-set, and anyway, it would have been a terrible thing to joke about. Ever the realist, Donatello briefly entertained the idea that they had been on something – high, drunk, something. But no, neither of them struck him as the type to do so. Then again, there was a lot about Audrey he didn't know.

"Does this mean you're feeling better?" he finally chose to ask, putting a careful hand on Leonardo's shoulder. He responded by giving the hand a gentle pat.

"Yeah. Much better." In that case, what did it matter if it was real or not?

"Good to have you back, bro," he said, throwing his arms around him in a quick, masculine hug and backing out of the entryway. He yawned loudly and stretched his arms high into the air. "Well, I've been working all night, and I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed. Tell me all about the trip in the morning, 'kay?" Both Leonardo and Audrey nodded in agreement as he plodded his way up to his bedroom.

Michelangelo, as always, was not as easily dismissed. "So what did he say to you? Father, I mean. Anything about us?"

"Yeah, actually," Leonardo replied, turning to leave the room. Donatello had a good idea there. He was just as beat and very much interested in little more than the warm, soft comfort of his bed. "He told me to trust you guys a little more. He said – what was it now? – 'Michelangelo can show you to find the answers in your heart.' He said that I should let you lead me every once in a while," he said, smiling at his not-so-little brother, who was bursting with wordless pride.

"Ah, you know I've always got your back, Leo-dude," he said softly, almost embarrassed. He made as though to followed Leonardo out of the room, but thought better of it and turned back around. "What about Raph? What'd he say about him?"

Raphael had been silent all the while, just as eager as the rest of them to listen to the story. His arms were still folded and his figure still stiff, even though Audrey now had both hands wrapped around his upper arm. Leonardo sighed, hopeful they would hear the apology in his voice.

"He said…to look to him for guidance, and that he has a lot to teach me about myself. In fact, he said that he's got a whole wealth of knowledge, if I could just learn to be quiet and accept it."

The tension was thick, and Michelangelo and Audrey both knew it. They both suddenly felt as though they were intruding on something private. Both exchange knowing glances and slipped quietly out of the room. Raphael's eyes remained locked on his older brother's, who was starting to feel uncomfortable from the heat of the stare.

"And Karai? What did she say?" he asked coldly, ignoring the fact that Leonardo had essentially just admitted his inferiority. He opened his mouth to answer, openly and honestly, but Raphael was in no mood to hear it. He half-suspected what he was going to say, anyway. Instead, he made a deep, harsh noise from somewhere in the back of his throat and pushed his way roughly out of the room.

Traitor.


	19. One more long goodbye

**(Author's note: I'm not dead! I wrote chapter 18, then shortly afterward experienced the most heart-wrenching break-up I have ever experienced, with my live-in boyfriend of over two years. Everything is all right now, and I'm recovering well…and at long last may I present to you the long-awaited chapter 19!)**

The morning of Midsummer dawned sticky and sweltering. As Audrey was leaving her apartment – with one last, lingering look at its hollow walls – she took notice of the thermometer that had been just outside the window from the day she'd moved in. 73 degrees…and that was at eight-thirty.

She had, of course, planned on leaving much earlier. There was still quite a bit of work left to be done to the house before the ritual, not least of all the cleaning. No one had lived there in years, and there were cobwebs in places they didn't belong. The house was, at bare minimum, inhabitable – she and Raphael had made sure of that during the week they'd stayed there. Still, it required a more vigorous cleaning, particularly inside the cabinets and kitchen drawers. Audrey had found a dead mouse in the cabinet beneath the sink and that had been the end of that.

But then, she thought as she adjusted her rearview mirror and started the engine, it was all worth it. She was making Raphael human. Soon he would have a flat, round face, five fingers on each hand, a smooth, warm chest, soft lips…she shook her head violently. Out of the four of them, Raphael was the grade-A certified asshole. He didn't think twice about turning around and chewing someone out for something inane. Yet, as much as she knew this, she couldn't forget the gentleness of his touch as he helped her out of the hammock that night, nor the way he looked at her while she drowsed lazily at his side…oh now, this was ridiculous – she had to slam her foot on the brakes at a red light she had only just noticed.

It was just after nine when she rapped her knuckles hard on the door leading to their sewer home. A chill from the damp underbelly of New York City passed over as she waited. As much as she should have been used to it by now, the home of the misfits she so dearly loved was anything but comfortable. She drew in her breath sharply as something scuttled past her feet, praying it wasn't a rat. Oh, how she hated rodents. She shifted her wait anxiously from one foot to the other, just about hopping as she did so. Please, please, _please _let someone answer the door soon!

At long last, Leonardo's familiar face met her in the doorway. In her eagerness to step away from the filthy part of the sewer, she flung her arms around him in relief. "Hey," she murmured in the place where his ear should have been. "How're you guys doing?"

Leonardo closed the door behind her swiftly so as not to allow the chill to affect the rest of the home. "Okay I guess," he replied, patting her on the back with one hand in a pseudo-hug. She drew away from him and peered nervously into his eyes. She hated the feeling that she was dragging Raphael away from the only family he'd ever known, and the look in his eldest brother's eyes only made her guilt worse. But what was there to say in response? The plans were made and the clock was ticking. She tried to shove her guilt back into the recesses of her mind and kissed his cheek lightly as she moved into the living area.

Ironically, the normalcy of the home seemed strange. Donatello and Avery were in the dining area, each with a steaming cup of coffee in their hands. Avery was whispering something urgently to him, his hands flailing with dramatic emphasis while Donatello listened attentively. Rose was by the kitchen sink, washing dishes with a dishtowel thrown lazily over her shoulder. She was happily chatting with a bemused Michelangelo, who was clearing dishes from the table with a furtive, knowing smile. And Raphael? Audrey smiled at the sight. He was rushing in between an open suitcase on the couch and everywhere else in the sewer, as thought he were attempting to pack the entire place. In fact, he was so busy rushing that he never saw her come in.

She walked over to the piece of oversized luggage and perched herself on the armrest of the couch.

"Geez Raph, how much of this stuff do you really think you're gonna need?" she asked, idly rummaging through his things. A handful of portable weapons (naturally)…his favorite video game system (a Playstation, well all right)…a book on Zen Buddhist philosophies? Curious, she flipped open the ragged, dog-eared text and read, "_Show me your face before your mother and father were born."_

Before she could pose the question aloud, Raphael snatched the book from her hands and tossed it back into the suitcase. "I'll need something to amuse myself with while I get acclimated, won't I?" he snapped. She folded her arms across her chest and smirked.

"'Acclimated'? Zen philosophy? Wow Raph, I didn't know you could read."

He replied only with a snort and continued his mad race. She moved to follow, but Leonardo's heavy hand on her shoulder held her back.

"You will take good care of him, won't you? Send him back to us if need be?" She turned around to face him. Though he was no longer sick with depression, the concern he had for the breaking up of his family was still heavy in his eyes. In fact, he looked as though he hadn't slept properly in days. Rather than mock his pain with a derisive laugh, she placed her hand reassuringly on top of his.

"Don't worry Leo. We'll be in touch before long. And if anything should happen – which I sincerely doubt – you will be the first to know."

Raphael grunted and tugged his suitcase off the sofa with significant effort. The entire room seemed to wince as the overloaded piece of luggage came within inches of his toe. "Well," he said, purposely ignoring his brothers' gaping stares, "I'm all set to go."

The sewer dropped to an incredible level of quiet – a little too quiet for Audrey. She tried to excuse herself, telling them all that she'd be right outside waiting. This, however, was not sufficient for Michelangelo. He nearly tripped over his own scurrying feet in his mad dash toward her, throwing his arms over her shoulders as though he thought he'd never see her again.

"Whoa, hey, you just gonna leave without saying goodbye?" he asked, hugging her so close that she swore she heard something crack. "We'll miss ya! You were so much fun to be around. Keep in touch, write or call or somethin'."

Sometimes it was difficult to tell who was the more emotional turtle, Michelangelo or Donatello. Even while Michelangelo had his arms around her, Donatello had his crossed snugly in front of him. It looked as if he were restraining himself from flailing them at her wildly, begging her not to go. He stared blankly at the ground, kicking around at a piece of dirt that wasn't there. Audrey caught sight of him as Rose was gently nudging him into speech.

"Yeah…don't lose touch," he murmured without lifting his head. His voice sounded oddly congested.

It took considerable effort to pry Michelangelo off her, but when she succeeded she gripped his shoulders and softly kissed his cheek. "We'll be sure to write as often as we can," she said. "Don't worry. You'll be fine without us. Maybe now you'll have time to beat my high score, huh?"

Michelangelo grinned wistfully. "Yeah, be nice to get the name 'Psycho' off that list…Listen, Audrey – thanks for hanging out with us this year. No one could replace April; we all miss her, but you've come real close. I don't know about the other guys, but I learned a lot from you. Before you, I never realized just how beautiful the world really is, how full of mystical energy and just all kinds of crazy stuff. Plus, it was sorta neat to go through grad school with you. Makes me wish there was a way I could do it too."

"Ooh Mike, give her that thing you made!" Rose exclaimed suddenly. Michelangelo's face flushed, and he became instantly shy. Which was all right with Audrey, because his short speech had started to prick her eyes with tears. She pinched the bridge of her nose and blinked quickly to stop the flow, but Michelangelo was preoccupied with exchanging glances with Rose. They fought a silent battle with their eyes, but before either could vocalize anything Avery had gone into Splinter's study and retrieved "that thing". Michelangelo was horrified, but Audrey was thrilled.

It was a large bit of canvas, at least as tall as the turtles and just as wide. On it was painted (if it could even be called a painting; it seemed to breathe right before her eyes) was an incredible interpretation of the night sky over water. Everything, from the waves below to the stars above, appeared to be alive, pulsing with a steady heartbeat. He had captured a rising moon, swollen and orange and unbelievable. When she first saw it, she took a sharp breath that was almost a gasp.

"Oh Mike, did you make this all by hand?" she asked, falling to her knees in front of it. She had to touch it just to be sure it wasn't really breathing. Even stone-cold Raphael had to pause in admiration. Michelangelo, either humbled or humiliated, scratched the back of his heated neck nervously.

"Yeah. Took me…six months I think?" he answered, eyeing Rose for confirmation, who nodded. "I wanted you guys to have something in your new place to make you think of us. I figured, here's how you made me see the world; it's like, my way of saying thank you."

His explanation was slow and stuttered, but Audrey understood it completely. She got back up on her feet and turned back towards him. It was obvious he had a spent a lot of time on the painting and was anxious about her reaction – he was wringing his hands and his steel blue eyes were wide open. They peered at her almost fearfully as she approached and replaced her hands on him, this time on his shoulders.

"It's beautiful," she said softly. "I can't even begin to describe it to you. The way the colors flow and the lack of absolute realism…there's a heartbeat to it, and I love it. And if that's how I've made you see the world, all the better. You've changed my world too. I hadn't even so much as touched a Playstation before I met you - "

"Which is your own fault; I've been trying to get you to play for years!" Avery interrupted loudly, followed by an equally loud grunt as Rose shoved him square in the chest. But Audrey continued as if she hadn't heard him. Which, considering how intently she was staring at Michelangelo, was entirely possible.

" - and you freed up my spirit. You showed me how to relax and enjoy life for what it is. And, after working for so many months on my doctoral paper [here again Avery scoffed, earning himself another punch in the stomach, that was something I really needed. Your _joie d'vivre _is incredible; thanks for sharing it with me."

Another swift kiss and his muscles relaxed beneath her palms. Now he looked puzzled. "My what?" he asked, taking a step backward and thereby slipping out of her hands. This allowed her to step over to Donatello, who answered his brother's question before she could.

"_Joie d'vivre. _Joy of living. It refers to the way you gain pleasure simply from being alive. A pretty accurate assessment, I'd say."

Audrey giggled, winding her arm loosely around Donatello and giving him an awkward sideways hug. It was amazing how young these boys could make her feel. "I'm going to miss you too, Donnie," she said as she pulled his body closer to her. He relented, snaking his arm uneasily around her as well. "I'll miss the way you always have an answer for everything. All I have to do is wonder aloud about something and you come back with an explanation. Human encyclopedia; was that ever a nickname for you? Well, maybe not. But in any case, you're one of the kindest, sweetest people I know. Please don't change, okay?"

She squeezed his shoulder gently before stepping out of the embrace. While he didn't say anything in response to her farewell declaration, the shimmering in his deep brown eyes was response enough. He opened his mouth for a moment, then closed it when he realized that no noise would come out. It hardly mattered; she had taken up her next goodbye in front of Leonardo.

This one was going to be a bit more difficult. The eldest brother of the clan was a well-trained stoic, one who could hide his emotions, the one least likely to allow his emotions to interrupt his actions. The fact that he had already shown concern over the loss of his brother was astounding enough. Audrey could hardly hope for the sort of affection that Michelangelo had displayed. Nevertheless, she touched his folded arms and smiled.

"And you, Leo. I don't think I've spent as much time with any one of you as I have with you these past couple of months. Thank you for coming with me to Japan. I learned a lot, about you and about your family. You are amazingly loyal and strongly disciplined, things I've always admired about you. You have a perfect balance of honor and grace that gives me such respect for you. As long as you maintain that harmony, you and your family will remain intact and unharmed. Oh Leonardo…your father would be so proud of you."

Her use of the words "honor and grace" immediately caught him by surprise, so much so that he was fairly certain his heart had momentarily stopped beating. After all, she hadn't been present during his vision of Master Splinter and Karai, and even if she had she never would have heard what they'd told him. Moreover, he had never revealed that intimate detail, not to anyone. How did she know?

Luckily for him, she interpreted the drainage of color from his face as a reaction to her goodbye. She patted his forearm, stepped backward, and lowered her head in deep respect. This brought him back to reality; he bowed his head in return.

"Thank you. That means a lot to me, more than you know," he replied. "I wish you both all the luck in the world. We love you both, and we will miss you terribly. Take good care of yourselves," he replied. Audrey heaved a loud sigh to a chorus of "yeah"s that was murmured around the group. Then she laughed unexpectedly.

"Well, now that I've brought you all down…I'm going to go wait up on the surface. Raph, my car is right up in front of the laundromat. Meet me there when you're ready, okay?"

Raphael nodded his consent, and she turned to leave. Before her hand had even reached the handle, Michelangelo stopped her.

"Hey Audrey."

"Yeah?"

"Blessed be."

She grinned, biting her bottom lip hard to stop herself from crying. "Blessed be, Michelangelo. Blessed be."


	20. Welcome to the rollercoaster ride

**Long time coming, I know! Thank you to my loyal readers, and I promise, the next chapter is already half-written. Thanks again and enjoy!**

xxxxxxx

Audrey couldn't remember ever having been so nervous in all 24 years of her life. She had been a terrible wreck for most of the ride up to Connecticut; twenty minutes on the interstate and Raphael had taken over the driver's seat. He tried to make light of the situation by cracking jokes about the songs on the radio, but Audrey was not keen on giving much attention to his comments on "Van Hagar". At one point she had drawn her knees up to her chest and was muttering something strange-sounding under her breath. She tried to explain that she was only reciting the spell she'd memorized, but he pulled the car over at the nearest rest stop and bought her a cup of chamomile tea anyway. As she sat snuggled up in the car with her tea, her Cheshire-cat smile was so broad that it almost reached ear to ear. He denied everything – though internally he was pleased about having won her over.

By the time they'd arrived at the country house, Audrey had returned to her highly aggitated state. She started barking orders at him in a way so uncharacteristic for her that he held his tongue and listened. Together they swept the property clear of negative energy (he wondered if her anxiety would count against them), burned fragrant incense all throughout the house, and concocted a strange potion with more herbal ingredients than he could remember. He eyed it warily as it bubbled with offensive brown color. "Are we gonna drink that?" he asked nervously. She didn't answer.

Sunset met with a concerned Raphael and a frantic Audrey, together surrounded by a circle of moonstones. She was sweating so much that he couldn't help but wonder if there would be anything left to her by the end of it. To his left, the sun was dipping down below the horizon. There was a certain amount of palpable energy in the air; the wind seemed to be speaking words as it drifted over the long grass. A violent chill passed through his body. No wonder they called it the most energetic time of the year! He and Audrey stood facing one another in the center of the circle. Over her shoulder he caught sight of a faint star. He briefly wondered if it was one of the planets that was aligning itself for the spell.

Meanwhile, Audrey looked like she was about to vomit. All the color was gone from her face, and she was shaking so badly that all he wanted to do was throw his arms tightly around her and hold her still. Instead, he settled on clapping his hands around hers as she was rubbing them together for the umpteenth time. "Hey," he said, in that soft tone that he so rarely adopted. "Why are you so upset? What's the worst that could happen, huh?"

"Thespellcouldbackfireandyoucouldturnintoafullfledgedturtleandtherewouldbenowaytoreverseit." In one breath she put words to the fear that had been mounting since she'd woken up that morning. Relieved at finally having gotten her worst fear out of her mouth, she took a deep breath and watched Raphael's reaction. A shadow of apprehension passed behind his eyes, but it quickly disappeared.

"Eh, whatevah," he said with a shrug. Classic Raphael. "I ain't about to panic. I trust you. You been doin' this Wicca thing since you was a kid. I think you got a pretty good idea 'bout what you're doin'. And even if it gets all screwed up, well...I won't know the difference, will I?"

"But your brothers - "

"Are you kiddin' me? Leo's been tryin' to shut me up in a glass bowl for years; he'd be _thrilled_. Donnie would have a new science project, and Mikey would have a new pet. The way I see it, everybody wins."

He punctuated his remarks with a wry smile, but Audrey was unable to see the humor. Her mouth went dry when she tried to reply, so nothing came out. He grasped her hands more tightly, this time interlocking her fingers with his as best as he could. He pulled her closer and looked her directly in the eye.

"Audrey. I ain't worried."

For a moment she was lost in his eyes; they were deep and beautiful and true. Her mouth hung open slightly as a result of her inattentiveness. Then she remembered that she had a job to do. She cleared her throat and swallowed hard, trying to force the words to come out.

"Your bandana," she croaked. Then she coughed again. "Your bandana." This time her voice was strong. Its clarity encouraged her. "You should probably take it off. What are the odds that your human form will have the same size head?"

He chuckled. "You makin' jokes 'bout my ego now?" he asked, reaching behind his head to untie the bit of cloth. She was careful to step back as he removed the bands around his head, elbows, and knees. It was a little disconcerting. It felt very much as though she were watching him undress. In fact, she was fairly certain her face was flushed simply watching. When he was finished, he handed everything over to her, unsure of where to put it. She quickly tossed it aside outside the circle, then took a deep, calming breath to steady herself. But they weren't finished.

"Oh, _Raph_," she moaned in disappointment, pushing her hair forcefully away from her eyes.

"What?"

"Your _sai_."

"My what?"

She sighed with mild annoyance. They were running out of time, and she wanted to get this done and over with while her legs still felt strong enough to stand. In an effort to speed things along, and without giving it so much as a second thought, she reached over and untied the belt that held his weapons in place. It took him a split second to realize what it was she was doing. With all the lightning-quick reflexes of a true ninja, he grasped hold of the sai just before she pulled the leather belt off and threw it to the side with his other belongings.

"Whoa, hey!" he shouted. It dawned on her what she had almost done, and she gasped and began to stutter an apology. He eased his tone into a much less harsher one. "It's okay. It's just that, well, I'd really rather not have a hole in my foot on my first day bein' a human, y'know? Plus, you were gettin' pretty close to my...ah, never mind."

A brief and awkward pause told her that she had very nearly crossed the line. She hesitated to apologize, and he hesitated to rebuke her. After a few moments' shuffling their feet and looking away from each other, they decided the time had come to perform the spell. Audrey set about explaining the process to him.

"I will take care of everything," she said. "I'm going to draw the circle and call the corners, and give a short prayer to the Powers That Be. Then I'll perform the rites. Don't worry about any of that. All I want you to do is to focus on your transfiguration. Try to picture yourself human, imagine what you'll look like. Don't think about anything but the process of transformation. When you hear me start to recite the four-line spell, recite it with me as soon as you can. When you're ready, we're going to walk clockwise around the circle, starting at the northern point. Three times around should do it. And then..." she trailed off. There was no need for her to continue. He understood perfectly. He just hoped that she would make it that far without fainting.

Audrey took one more steadying breath, then began her rounds about the circle. Raphael contented himself with watching her, watching the way her hair cascaded over her shoulders as she bent low to the ground, watching the silhouette she made with the sunlight as she stretched her fingers high toward the sky...he closed his eyes. There was no way he could possibly concentrate otherwise.

What was he supposed to be concentrating on? Oh that's right – transfiguration. Okay. That was manageable. Imagine himself human. He inhaled deeply and tried to picture himself without the shell, with five fingers on his hand and five toes on each foot. In his mind's eye he drained all the color out of his skin, leaving himself with a pale pink shade instead. _Well, maybe not _that _pale, _he chuckled to himself as he imagined himself white as a ghost. Perhaps with a bit of a tan...there, that would do. How he expected to have a tan after years of living in the sewer was inexplicable, but he did. He wanted long shaggy hair, but not too long – just to his chin, the way that Audrey liked it.

Something bright and yellow flashed in front of him. His instinct was to open his eyes wide and investigate, but he was terrified of what he might encounter. Mutated villains and corporate monsters he could handle. The supernatural made him cringe. He wanted to call to Audrey and make sure she was all right, but he didn't want to put her hard work at jeopardy. He listened closely. Her voice was weak and trembling, but it was there, performing the rites just as she intended. Slowly she began to regain some of her confidence. Whatever it was, it must have been fleeting. Still, he could feel his heart pounding.

"In this time and in this place, carry him to his finished race...complete the change, set him free...as is my will, so mote it be..."

The words were soft and slightly broken, but there they were. Raphael felt a lump rise into his throat. That was it? That was her great spell? Something was missing, something big – possibly the part where she specified that she wanted him human. He had enough experience with the supernatural to know that the Powers That Be loved ambiguity. They thrived on it, and that was enough to make him extraordinarily anxious. Nevertheless, there was little he could do to adjust the spell now. He resigned himself to simply focusing unnaturally hard on his human shape, and muttering the words in chorus with Audrey. He still refused to open his eyes, but as Audrey's words became louder and she became more sure of herself, she edged over to him and slipped her hand into his. The warmth of her palm against his, even though it was far smaller, oddly enough gave him reassurance. He squeezed her hand as if to say, "If you're in, I'm in."

Just as she had instructed, together they paced three times around the circle. Here he dared to slowly pry his eyes open. Nothing was unusual or different from the way he'd left it – except for the circle of moonstones. Where there had been a ring of stones, now there was a ring of ash. There was a distinct smell of electrical fire all around them. Had its source made a noise? Raphael kicked himself for not hearing it. But then, how could something that made such extensive damage go unheard? He must have been lost in a mysterious trance. Ah, these nature religions – they never did make much sense, not even in the subtle way that Splinter practiced them.

When their trek around the circle was completed, they stood still at their starting point, facing the inside of the circle with frightened curiosity – and waited. Raphael wondered if she could hear the drumming of his heart as loudly as he could. They exchanged nervous glances. Nothing was happening. How could a spell so wrought in mysticisim not work?

By now the sky was littered with stars, and each of them was feeling exceptionally foolish. Audrey cocked her head and squinted her eyes toward one of the brighter stars – Mars, was it? "Well," she whispered, keeping her voice low in case they missed something, "do you feel any different?"

Raphael looked down at his hands, then showed them to her. "Nah. I'm still a lean, green, fighting machine. I do feel kinda thinner though."

Their eyes met, and together they erupted into laughter. It was all those months of nerve-wracking decision-making, bubbled up into the realization that they had effectively accomplished nothing. Their anxiety melted into a pool of relief. How ridiculous it had all been! Their laughter got the better of them, and Raphael sank to the ground first, followed by Audrey, who collapsed on top of him.

They were so distracted by their humiliation that they failed to notice the mist that rose up as soon as Raphael's skin hit the ground. While they giggled uproariously about all the preparations they'd made and how silly they felt, a veritable fog surrounded them. It was not the sort of fog that they were used to, the sort that one expects on a chilly night in London. Audrey only noticed it when it crept between her and Raphael – and she gasped and pulled back.

"_Raph!" _she hissed in a panic, flailing her arms to indicate the mist. But Raphael was frozen in place. He could barely move or breathe or even think. The haze drew a curtain fully between them so that Audrey completely disappeared from his sight – and he had no breath to call out to her, no strength to grasp her hand for security. As a matter of fact, as the warm cloud surounded them, he found that he was suddenly feeling very sleepy. He wondered if it was some sort of sleeping gas that – no, that made no sense; there was definitely nobody out there save for the two of them. The desire to fall into sleep was overwhelming. Before he was able to even understand the situation, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he slipped backward into unconsciousness.


End file.
